Finally it arrived. Been looking forward to this for a while, and I am not disappointed at all. Sigma did a wonderful job with this lens. It's a big hunk of glass (15.2oz) that feels every bit as solid as my 40mm Limited build wise.
One curious aspect is that Sigma did everything to get good sharpness even wide open, and ended up sacrificing borders in their quest. Wide open, the lens still resolves very, very well in the center. Thus, if you are looking for a good 'overall' piece of glass the softer edges can be a real turndown. I checked the photozone.de tests and compared them to my beloved 40, and the difference is huge: the 40 tries to get high resolution across the entire frame and succeeds in doing so but sacrifices speed. The 30 says to hell with corners and gives me a lovely image even at f/1.4. Two very very different lenses, and playing with the 30 a bit I realize--as I suspected--that it will complement rather than replace the 40mm. So much for those plans!
I will definitely do some more testing with it, but for now here's a wide open snapshot doing what it does best.. low light. Maybe I am suffering from new-lens-itis but I think the rendering is just wonderful.