I picked up a Nikkor 28-80mm 3.3-5.6 for only 60 bucks shipped the other day. I read good things about it in the past and I haven't been disappointed. I bought it as a "whatever" kind of lens. I haven't done much shooting or testing, but it looks fairly sharp at 100% crop and has little to no barrel distortion at the wide end... it's a little goofy on a DX, but so far it's more fun than a 18-55 kit lens any day of the week.

Here's a shot of me just messing;
Specs: sRGB - D90
Exp. Time - 1/160th
F/3.8
ISO - 200 Exp. Bias - 0
Shot at 35mm
WB - Auto (+2 warm side)
Flash - SB 600 (no bias)
JPEG Fine

No PS, straight from the card.