Previously you could hover over the origin and drag it to whatever location you wanted and it would snap to families, objects or lines that already existed (usually at endpoints). I have done this a lot of I want to rotate an object about a certain point. (you can also use the <spacebar> to rotate something 90 degrees which is also a great time saver)
A new feature in 2012 I have noticed is a button that appears on the options bar when the rotate command is active. Click on this button and it places the origin of the rotate command on your cursor. Awesome!