17-40 is pretty much the best lens you can get covering the wide to "portrait" focal lengths

Glad you're not taking my portrait Rich ;)

As I said in the other recent thread - imho wide angle photography is a specialist field if you want to try your hand at it then go for the wider angle lens. On a crop camera 17-40 is not wide enough to get those shots.  

And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Edward Lear
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html