I was more than a little apprehensive about purchasing this lens before many official reviews came out, but I'm really glad I did. I have an 18-55 kit, 70-300, 60mm f/2.8 Macro, and 50 prime (all great beginner lenses, BTW) but I needed something I could stick on my camera and forget about when going out around town. As a young lady that likes small purses, this is a constant internal struggle- hang my awesome camera around my neck like an "I'm on a project and shouldn't be hit on" necklace, or stuff it in a big camera bag with my other lenses in a "I don't have kids but I might as well cause this looks like a diaper bag" fashion. I deflect male advances either way. It's just a matter of how light I travel when I do it. And if I can leave some highly-stealable stuff at home, I will.How does it feel?This seems to have the same feel as my 70-300. Not a plastic-y light feeling like the 18-55, slightly rubber ridges and hefty, but not heavy, weight to it. I wouldn't use this lens to bludgeon enemies, but it doesn't feel as though it came out of a gum ball machine either.What's the color like?We compared this lens to the Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Standard & Medium Telephoto Lens for Canon SLR Cameras (took identical photos at same focal length, f-stop, settings, etc.) Both lenses were incredibly sharp at the sweet spots and still great at the edges (when taken at F8) but the colors of the 18-135 were much less washed out. We definitely had the white balance settings locked for both photos, but the 18-135 just showed reds, purples, blues, greens, all colors were more vibrant and true.Now if you want your family photos to look like they came straight from a comic book with crazier-than-life color explosions, you'll have to look to post-processing for that. Weirdo. All I'm saying is that I won't have to change the color balance to cloudy to experience non-prison looking color in family portraits. Nothing kills the vibe of a party photo montage like grayish Alcatraz hues.Yeah, but I can get this from an 17-85 or the new 15-85, right?Good point, friend. But the extra focal length after 85mm is really worth it, especially when shooting things across a street or shooting semi-close wildlife. And if the 15-85 is way more expensive and the 17-85 is about the same price, why not go for the longer length? You could make the same argument for the 18-200, but I don't think that the compromised sharpness (and heavy 21 oz weight, vs the 16.1 oz of the 18-135) is worth the extra focal distance. Also, you get the latest version of the image stabilization system with this one.But there is no USM, and the 17-85 has USM. I MUST HAVE USM ON ALL MY LENSES!Calm down there, buddy. True, there is no USM on this lens. But having used both the 17-85 and 18-135, the latter is just as fast to autofocus. It may not have the USM, but you wouldn't notice a big difference. The motor is super fast and doesn't autofocus hunt like my 70-300 USM tends to do. You can hear the motor, but it's not as loud as the Canon 70-300 USM motor. Image stabilization is also great- there were plenty of pictures that have been saved with that feature, especially in low light/no flash situations.Finally, I want to mention the "The Digital Picture" ISO 12233 Crops (google this; I can't provide a link). This test scared the crud out of me, and is making a lot of people spew hate about this lens. It makes this lens look soft compared to some other lenses. When I started shooting, I thought at first that there was a sharpness issue until I realized that my little brother had changed my ISO to 1600. Thanks, little bro! After that was fixed, everything was as sharp as I could hope for. Having done my own sharpness tests, I realized that the ISO 12233 crops weren't telling the whole story. I don't plan on sticking this sucker on a tripod and shooting tiny black and white lines with it all day (I have more interesting subjects, and they are in color!) I've taken hundreds of pictures with this lens and just don't see any image quality or sharpness difference when compared to my other lenses. So chill, people.In conclusion, if you love the pictures your DSLR gives you, but hate the lens diaper-bag/bookbag look, this is a great choice. It's not going to make you into a magical Ansel Adams photo spouting machine, but no equipment will do that. This lens takes some pretty nice pictures when you stop worrying about 100% crops and start enjoying life. Shoot and be happy.