Josh, since the lense on the A1 is fixed you can only hope for the best.

Read some of the SLR forums on the L-lenses and you'll find plenty of posts of people returning their L-lenses several times until the got a correct one.

Swedish (and apparently many other shops) take in the L-lense for caliration without sayd "What?!" They just do it - either because they want your money or that they know what's its about - your choise.

I returned the 24-70/2.8L 2 times - Canon did not complain, They probl. have done so many times.

And what makes you think that I don't use L-lenses and have not seent the strong variations on QA at Canon? I have a 70-200/L and it is perfect in the entire range.

You can find very good - and highly technical - reviews of the L-lenses on many sites on the Net - there you find wonderful charts of sharpness and CA and barrelling etc. for you to evaluate yourself.

As for sports photografers using the L-lenses has nothing to do with their quality (or ev. lack thereof). They want fast lenses, to freeze images, to send to their editors that will print them in a resolution/quality that would make users in this forum cry or laugh. I'd never met a sports photografer than cared much about that. It's bread and butter shooting and the important is that there is something usefull. Durability is ofcourse also a factor for such use.

As for the real pros. where qualtiy counts - like Swedish Lennart Nilsson - you won't find him holding an L-lense. But then he's on another budget.

The L-lense are good and quality stuff, but the QA varies a lot - do a search - not on this forum, but for stills. Some of the most picky and skillful reviewers of lenses might have some news for you.