I picked up my 30D a couple days ago as an upgrade to my 300D. It came with the latest firmware (1.0.4) preinstalled, so it's likely that it's not an 'early copy.' It's nothing but exceptional... the extra options, the bigger LCD screen, the larger and clearer viewfinder, etc...
the best thing is that the noise is very clean. I would say that even ISO3200 is fairly usable without noise reduction, even more usable with noise reduction software, and is roughly equivalent to ISO1600 on the Rebel, but with less chroma noise. VERY low amounts of chroma noise at high ISO, and manages to retain plenty of fine detail. ISO1600 on the 30D is close to ISO800 on the Rebel, and so on. I would say that my model's noise matches dpreview's photographic tests under the 30D review.