The point i was trying to drive home was that you have to understand what you are getting into. You have a tool and you have peripherals to expand that tools capability.
You'll have the occasional low budget elitist jump in and claim that the world can be had in the palm of your hand with a broken spotmatic and a 50mm lens... which is true, if your world occupies the confines of a mexican prison cell.
Trust me when i say that i understand what you are going through because in a way i too wanted the same things, wide to normal angle fields of view and thin depth of field.
trying to find budget solutions i ended up buying one of pentax's most prestiegous lenses, the FA31 (after hording something like 20 "low budget" lenses in total)
my chase to find what i want through sheer experimentation rather than tedious research has cost me quite a bit of cash... and what have i learned... better to buy the right tool the first time, even if the initial cost may seem high.
in fact, looking back, i could have outfitted myself with a D700 and 3-4 quality lenses for teh amount of money i spent with pentax.
because once you figure out what you want out of your photography, two or three lenses really DO get the job done.. and they get it done fantastically.
if money is tight, my suggestion is to SAVE and read these forums.
And if my initial post offended you, well.. tough luck, thats how i roll.