35mm might not be wide enough on the crop camera. I guess it's worth depends on your experience. I wouldn't say it sucks, as I've seen some good pictures come out of kit lenses. But some good alternatives to the kit lens are the tamrom 17-50 and sigma 18-50, both f/2.8 all the way through. But also in the ~$400 range new. Or the canon 17-55 f/2.8 IS.. that's suppose to be great. And it had better be at a grand
If anything, you can always sell it off to someone if it doesn't meet your needs.