if you have two parts written on the same staff, say oboe 1 and 2, is there an easy way to separate the two parts onto different staves?
Yes, there's a "chordsplitter" utility here which might do the trick.
http://nwc-scriptorium.org/helpful.html (http://nwc-scriptorium.org/helpful.html)
I thought there might be a user tool, too, but I haven't looked.
Yup, Andrew wrote a "parts" tool for NWC2 that does this beautifully. I think it's part of the user tool install kit...
The starter kit (http://ntworthy.com/nwc2/usertools/) includes ADP's Parts tool.