""I have yet to get the SO pin going high after a good packet is received. don't know why that is not happening. As a result I have to keep polling the RX_Buffer every time to see if i have Rx any data in it.""

Supposedly, when the CS goes high (deselect), SO should become a standard output. If you have not selected packet protocol, then this will not work. I have it working quite well with GDO0 as the valid packet flag. I have not tried GDO1.
Ron