canon rebel xt -- focusing problems?!

[crosvs]

hey everyone-

so i finally treated myself to a new canon rebel xt after completing my first year of law school i've been meaning to get a rebel since the original came out several years ago!!

while generally i love it, i'm having some curious issues with it:

i've read that the stock 18-55 mm lens that comes with the canon digital rebel xt is a poor lens ... but i refuse to believe it's worse than my old canon digital elph pocket camera!! macro close up shots canNOT be perfectly focused; when "zoomed" to 55mm the image is NOT perfectly focused when at a distance; it's almost impossible manually focus to perfect focus; an the autofocus is unable to get a lock on extreme distances or in low lighting conditions. i'm thinking i got a bad kit, what do you think?