Equipment D50 kit lens upgrade

My wonderful other half has offered to buy me a lens for my birthday, although i think its a trick to get me to buy her more jewellery for her birthday, now my current lens set up is

Sigma 10-20 ex
18-55 kit lens
Sigma 70-300
Nikon 50mm 1.8

Now I had thought originally to replace the 70-300 with the Nikon 70-300vr but then realised that I only seem to use this lens when at zoos currently, and perhaps upgrading my kit lens would be the best bet, to which after reading lots of reviews on photozone.de, slrgear and some other sites, I think I narrowed it down to either the sigma 24-70 2.8 ex or the Nikon 16-85 vr. At that point I'm pretty sure my brain started to melt out of my ears once I started looking at the several threads of people claiming theirs was the best lens.

Now I mainly take photographs around Scotland in the forests and lochs, some city shots, and travel shots. I don't really like taking pictures of people, and I don't take my camera to sports events.

I'm leaning towards the 16-85 for the Vr to allow me to hand hold a bit more and the overlap on my other lens to reduce the lens changes a bit.

Am I right I thinking that the 2.8 might not be what I require currently, if i'm not taking low light moving pictures and the VR might help me better in gloomy forests? or am I totally wrong?

 

Right, VR only helps you with camera shake. It won't freeze action. For the price, have you considered the 18-200? It's almost the same price as the 16-85. The three lenses I use on my D50 are my: 50mm 1.8, 18-200mm and Tamron 28-70mm 2.8. If I'm shooting low-light, I don't even take the 18-200 but it is awesome in normal/bright light situations, I have to believe the 16-85 would be similar, just more limited range.

 

I did think about the 18-200, and i have taken it off and put it on my wish list several times, but a lot of the reviews I read gave the 16-85 a much higher optical rating than the 18-200, although I still don't know If i'd notice the difference. i.e photozone.de.