kreislauf

I think it's more of a case of "what are you able do with it", vs. is the 27mm any good.
 
The '27' is easy to master and does not disappoint.
I wont say how "good" it is, or speak on the build, or the lens cap or the stinking box it came in, it's just an easy lens to get to know.  Like a cheap taco, it's just satisfying to use at a good price.
 
Those quick to poke at it with a stick maybe aren't patient with other Fuji lenses either. They may also be the crowd that thinks they need a full size sensor, and then find out those often have less pixel density than an M43 Olympus Pen.
"Mastering what you have" is typically a better initial practice then hopping around from lens to lens, blaming glass on one's ability, or "inability" to hit the metaphoric side of barn with 16 MP's of gamma...
 
Great conversation just the same. At least we all shoot Fuji, right?   You guys probably hate motorcycles,

my humble apologies......
 
Some stray pot shots with an XE-1 (does anyone even shoot with those anymore?) and the crappy 27mm.
 
Horrible, complete lack of color saturation
 

 
 
Nearly no contrast at all, a bit bland.... snooze...
 

 
 
 
Rotten, worthless bokeh. You can't get bokeh from a 27, forget it.  It's crap. Good luck!
 

 
 
The pics without any feeling at all, flat, boring, very run of the mill "snaps" at best.
 

 
 
Very prone to blowing out the whites, (whoops!) worthless!
 

 
 
 
It's not capable of finding focus with both hands and a flashlight. 
Especially running around with no flash at an indoor event. Forget it. Just stay home. Buy a Canon!
 

 
 
As a 'beater" lens, it's ok, but no better than an iPhone 4. 
Maybe good enough so you remember where some of the big parts go... but that's it. Not a good lens for anything "expressive",

everything pretty flat, bla-meh....
 

ah good thing that you know your math, congratulation. Only 1/64th, jesus! Thats terrible. Out of camera jpgs MUST LOOK REALLY BAD BECAUSE OF THIS NUMBER!
 
Yeah.
No.
 
What you (maybe!) might not know is, what difference it will make in real life. And what 256 different tones per channel actually translates into an image, compared to 4096 or 16384.   
In the end: you send processed 8bit jpgs to your printshop, right?
Does it make a significant difference, when captured a JPG or RAW? Yes and no. It depends so much on your scenery, your processing and what you actually want in the end.
JPGs can be very well be used in serious photowork and general photography! If you know what you are doing and plan your shot (that means: think about it before!)
 
What JPGs can't be used: for internet wars of gear-centric pixel-peeper that like high numbers! 
 
And the information is not "thrown away" but translated into 16 millions of colors. The image does not become suddenly worse in image quality.
12bit or 14bit RAW has much more information, I totally agree. You can easily recover 2 stops of highlights with even years old Aptina 1" sensors like in the Nikon 1 cameras. New cameras give you great option to correct the desired latitude in your shots easily in post. If you need it, like when working to optimize the image in the way you want or need.
 
But could you imagine, that there are people, who deliberately chose jps over raw files? Even pros, that send bloody unaltered and compressed JPG? FOR PUBLICATION IN THE PRESS? HOLY COW, THEY MUST BE AMATEURES NOT TO HANDLE  42MP 16BIT RAW FILES!! 
 
They have something going for them: consistency and a mind towards exposure. Shooting jpg means thinking about what you want in terms of exposure and not underexpose to avoid any clipping and boost exposure +5EV on your crazy awesome 135 FF camera files...
 
No. OOC JPGs have severe limitations. You just cannot pull them that much in post like raw files and will see artifacts much sooner.
Still, I can pull out one stop of highlights on my Fuji JPGs, if needed.
So if you do a good job on exposing your image, you still have some room for modifications!
And no, JPGs are not extreme lossy. I would bet that you could not tell the difference in print of moderately processed JPG and RAW file.
 
Just my opinion. Pixel peeping drives you mad.