I know you say that you don't want to have to change lenses when you upgrade to a full-frame, but with how well lenses hold their value, you can easily get a few years worth of use out of a lens and sell it on eBay for 80%+ of what you paid for it. Unless you see yourself buying a full-frame camera in the next year (which new start at $2500 right now - 5DII, and the eventual 5DIII won't be any cheaper), I'd recommend considering EF-S lenses. As neuro said, you'll be hard pressed to find a wide-angle zoom that can reach moderate telephoto lengths on a crop camera out of an EF lens.


In this spirit, I'd like to recommend the EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM. It has great image quality and would fit in your budget of body (~$720) + lens (also ~$720). It's not quite up to L build-quality standards, but it's much, much better than the 18-55mm kit lens, and would help you get your feet wet in photography without being limited by equipment (at least in terms of image quality).


If you want to push your budget a little more, the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM is an amazing lens. You'd be very happy with this lens. It also takes L-series quality images, and with the constant big 2.8 aperture, you'll be able to more easily capture images in low-light and stop-action if you do any sports photography. This lens also has a $70 rebate on it right now, so it's about $990 on Amazon right now. It might be a little short for you at only 55mm (88mm equivalent), but with the T2i's 18mp, you can do a little cropping if needed.