The nice man in the big brown truck just dropped this off this evening and I did a test drive in my livingroom, photographing the Xmas tree at 55, 70, 135, 200, and 300 focal lengths.
The VR seems to work as it is supposed to. I am very impressed with this lens. Extremely sharp, even at 300mm.
I'm wondering how well it will work in low light conditions shooting with auto-ISO set at 6400 on the top end, and 1/100 shutter speed at the low end. The largest aperture at full 300 is 5.6. I'm thinking that may be enough for most low light conditions, excluding the very very low light, of course.