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The current technology, which seems to advance almost yearly, can currently only detect large planets around other stars. Only in the last few years have we been able to detect Jupiter and Saturn-size planets around other stars. Before that, only much larger planets were discovered.
The newest planet, although discovered with a very small telescope with a different method of planet detection, still falls into the general pattern of the other extra solar planets discovered. It's a large planet.
When these solar systems were first discovered, it turned most theories of planetary formation on their heads. Astronomers have since been scrambling to come up with theories of how these planets, especially the gas giants, are able to survive so close to their sun. Some theories say that perhaps some of these planets were born in the outer regions of their solar system, but migrated inward at some point. Other theories say that we're seeing a solar system in some early developmental stage.
Remember that we're only seeing our solar system as it stands in this moment in time. We've missed all the action from the past 5 billion years or so. Today we can only see the faint echoes of the huge collisions from our solar system's past, obliterating planets that used to be here, and forming new ones. Our moon is the final product of the ring system that surely once circled the earth for millions of years after its own collision with a Mars-sized object.
But keep in mind that there are probably are Sol-like systems out there we haven't discovered yet. We've found a few Saturns or Jupiters around other planets, but lack the technology to find the earths, mercuries, or venuses, if they're there. So far, the Universe has shown us that solar systems can come in many different varieties. I suspect there are many exotic planetary systems awaiting to be discovered.
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