Yup, I use the zoom all the time too, sometimes treating it in the manner Thom recommends, but other times just being lazy. I like Thom's recommendation to treat the zoom lens as if it were three conveniently packaged prime lenses, and to establish your composition (and camera position) based on the strengths of each focal length.
I'd love to replace my 28-70mm f2.8 AFS with something that would get me a little bit wider on the short end. I'm often too lazy to switch to a wider lens when I really should. I agree with Thom that a 24 - 105 would be ideal. I'm just waiting for Nikon to sell one that does justice to the modern dSLRs.