I really hate the useless episodes when I'm in the middle of an arc. They spent most of the episode recapping and very, very little happened. Man, I need to sleep for 4 weeks so I can get SOMEWHERE in this arc....
There was some recapping, but I consider an episode where they basically kill off two of the main enemies that they've been fighting for the past 5 episodes (and hunting for the past 30 episodes) to be pretty fucking major.
But yeah, I sorta know what you're saying: We all want to see the Gaara fight, but we'll have to wait. They just needed to take care of the other two fights, so that there's no interuptions this time. Honestly, I was really surprised how easily they dispatched those two enemies. I guess with Team Kohana weakening the enemy, it gave Team Sand a easy time to kill them.
Also, Gaara sorted acted the way I wanted him, too. He hasn't lost his edge, but he did mention that he was "repaying a debt to Kohana". (This was when it immediately switches to Naruto, so it makes me wonder if Gaara still feels the effects of what Naruto told him.)