Four yeas ago I bought this lens for Canon T2i, and it has held up quite well despite some slight abuses. The plastic body of course doesn't has the sophistication or full-on tank brute-ish-ness of the L lenses, but it is well-built and stable. On a crop body, this lens is fantastic for portraits. On a full frame, this is the definition of a walk-around lens. Open it up to 1.4 and just watch the background become ice cream sundae smooth. Wide open, there is quite a bit of vignetting, and you will most certainly need to use your focus points. The focus and recompose method will not suffice most of the time. If you've have microadjust, put that to use. Otherwise, good eyesight and some manual focusing might be necessary to get the most out of this lens. Stop it down to 1.8 or 2.0, and this lens becomes pretty sharp. Stop it down to 4.0, and it is razor sharp. There are 8 blades to the aperture and you can create some fantastic looking eight-pointed stars on light sources.The focusing wheel does have some play to it, which leads me to a downside of this lens: the focusing motor. It's not the full-blown ring USM/HSM business that's on other lenses. The micro-USM focuses fast, but the reliability is more of a concern. The front element is recessed well and serves like a hood. Fully focused to infinity, the front barrel is completely flush. However, if you add on a filter, that filter ring will jutt out a little. I happened to have dropped the lens once on the filter. The lens was not scratched because the filter bit the dust and cracked. However, the trauma messed up the motor so it couldn't focus anymore. I sent the lens off to canon to get fixed, and they told me this is a common problem for the lens. After I got the lens back, I noticed that the focus ring was less stiff and easier to turn. Since then, I've been more careful with this lens, and it as worked well so far.Even though I am largely to blame for the len's short comings, I do think it's about time that Canon gave this lens an update (rather than constantly tweeking their L range behemoths). This lens was introduced in 1993. 20 years is more than past time to refresh this. Still, this lens sales by the loads, and I suppose that's why they aren't.Compared to the baby f/1.8 50mm, this lens is much better built. I've used the f/1.8 and it does feel rather gimmicky. The mounting is plastic and the front focus ring feels like an after thought. Image quality wise, the f/1.4 stopped down to f/1.8 feels a tad sharper than the f/1.8 wide open. Additionally, because the f/1.8 has only five blades on the aperture, the out of focus highlights aren't as pretty to look at as the f/1.4 (pentagonal highlights just don't look as cool as the octagon ones in my opinion).Compared to the beastly f/1.2 50mm L, this lens is a much, much better deal. Yes, the L lens feels like it can be thrown on the floor and cause more damage to the concrete than it. But for >$1K, I can't just justify can extra 1/3 of a stop for that. I do notice that the straight-out-of-camera images from the L lens is a bit more saturated. And when you really start stopping down both lenses, the highlights from the L lens is more 'rounded' octagon rather than those of the f/1.4. The bokeh does seem to be fancier and even smoother on the f/1.2, though that is to be expected for a lens costing nearly four times as much. The L lens focusing ring is indeed much better built. Still, canon does have other lenses like the f/1.8 85mm prime which shows that you don't have to pay a fortune to get a reliable and sturdy ring USM rather than a microUSM.All in all, this is an excellent lens. I do wish Canon would give us an update with a better USM. For now though, at least within the canon range, this is still the one to get. You can shop around for a used copy and that should knock the price below 300. However, the main drawback will the the warranty support.