"Using the 17-40L on a crop camera doesn't have any advantage (image quality wise) over the EF-S 17-55mm or EF-S 15-85mm. "
there are a few fantastic EF-S lenses- EF-s 17-55, EF-S 15-85, and EF-S 10-22
those are the 3 I am aware of.
Those 3 EF-s lenses provide as good image quality to their L series counterparts.
Others such as my kit lens 18-55 and 55-250-- get decent pictures, but the image quality is obviously different when compared to L series.