Each time I show someone the Artboards feature in Illustrator, inevitably, the first question I get is always "so can I open a multi-page PDF file in Illustrator and have it open as a single Illustrator will multiple artboards"?
Sadly, Illustrator can still only open or place one page of a PDF at a time. So you'd have a lot of manual work on your hands -- basically creating your own artboards and then importing the PDF pages one at a time....
OR, you can do it the efficient way and use a script :)
Back when Artboards was first introduced in CS4, my friend and scripting guru Shane Stanley created an AppleScript that would basically allow you to drop any multipage PDF file on it -- and it would turn it into a mutli-artboard Illustrator file, with all the PDF pages -- in one step! Being that the script is written in AppleScript, it will only run on MacOS. The original script didn't support CS5 or Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
I'm happy to announce that Shane has graciously taken the time to update his script, so it now works for CS5 and also works on Mac OS 10.6. If you use the script, Shane has humbly requested that in lieu of paying him, you instead make a donation to help those in need in Christchurch and Japan. He suggested this organization, or the Red Cross.
You can download the script here.
**UPDATE** People have reported that the script works in CS6 and CC as well.