Welcome to the club I'm a 350D user for about 6 months now and loving it. Its both small and sufficiently powerful to produce excellent images.
I admit I haven't shot much with my kit lens due to the nature of the main subjects which I often shoot, think still less than 1k shots with it thus far. However, I had found that Av mode with f/8 would be the best mode to use the kit lens as sharpness is almost guarenteed. My camera often gives a higher Av of 11-13 instead in P mode for some reasons when the kit lens is used, which renders the shuttle speed a tad slow for action shots, and it isn't as sharp as in f/8.
The el cheapo 75-300 f/4-5.6 is quite a good telephoto lens though for the very lightweight 350D, it serves my needs very adequately and doesn't weigh a ton to lug it around and the balance feels just right