The old saying goes that pros don't use normal zooms. Yes, the lenses that
pros supposedly don't use because they are too busy trying to make their pictures
not
look like they were taken by normal people with normal zooms.
Concession to rationality... real people using stand zoom lenses is a
thing.Also: pros are real people.
There is some truth to the saying, though... but it's a subtle truth. Professionals most certainly do use stand-zooms; it's almost unthinkable to work a wedding with a
D810 without a
24-70mm f/2.8 in the kit. What the saying should mean is that professionals don't use normal-zooms in the way that amateurs do. The actual truth is that if you are using a standard zoom and are contentiously thinking about quality photography, you will be gravitating towards either the towards the longer or wider ends of the lens, and using the middle portion of the zoom less. Conversely, if used thoughtlessly, normal zooms can encourage a certain amount of sloppiness in controlling subject perspective
Note that this is primarily concerned with DX-specific lenses. It goes without saying, pairing the Nikon
D7100 or
D7200 with an AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 ED will be awesome, but not having a real wide angle option with that combination will get tiresome eventually.
With Nikon's tepid love for DX many people might be thinking off accumulating full frame lenses for an eventual jump to FX, possibly a DD750, maybe a D810 if they are really ambitious. This is not an inherently bad idea, but you tend to get more joy out of the equipment by matching DX specific focal lengths to DX equipment rather than trying to make FX focal lengths work. You may, in fact, never make the switch to FX, but you will always be using whatever equipment that you have in the here and now.
(Updated April 2015.)