17" mid-2009 MBP, 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo: can it take 16GB RAM? Does anyone have this unibody from mid-2009? Has anyone upgraded it to 16GB RAM? If so, is it good news?

Thanks!
If you mean either the 'SD' or the 'Mid 2009' then no, it can take 8GB only.  

EveryMac is a fabulous resource for that type of info, including in some cases, whether a machine can actually take more RAM than the Apple official original spec claims.