When I unbowed my shield, I was pissed about the condition of the gun. I had to spend about 2 and a half hours to clean it. But I got over it and took it to the range, I Put 150 rounds through her, and talk about an amazing gun.

First The Good, not a single error. The trigger is nice and smooth. The gun is accurate as hell. The gun feels great in the hand. The trigger breaks and resets nicely. Overall, this is a fantastic 9mm.

The bad/Meh...
When empty, it has a bit of wobble/shake. It's not like my XDS, which feels like the slide and polymer are all one solid piece.

The sights suck. There seems to be an excessive amount of white space between the front sight and rear sight. I don't personally like that, and I have become spoiled with the very quick fiber optic front sight of the XDS.

The magazine seems to be a bit loose in the magazine well, but I like how easy it falls when you press the slide release.

I feel so confident with this gun that it is my new daily carry until I can be 100% confident with my XDS. And unfortunately, it's gonna take some time before that confidence is earned. To top it off, I found my striker pin is damaged.

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The Shields sights are an easy fix. If you like fiber optics TruGlo TFO's are for you.
I do own an XDm 4.5 .45. I know the striker pin can, and will be damaged, if you dry fire a lot without a snap cap. There are some aftermarket pins available that can take more abuse but I always use a snap cap anyway. Springfield will send you a new pin free if you ask. I have a couple in my bag but have never needed them.

I did have a customer at our range have me shoot his new XDs Saturday. Very nice. I am not a particularly great shot but at 30' using steady paced quick fire, all five shots were touching one inch high of dead center. I like that gun. Low round capacity will probably keep me from owning one. Maybe............for today anyway.

Finally an honest XDS owner! My shield is my carry and am debating selling my xds due to the fact that I am much more confident with my shield. That 45 round makes quite a difference in these small guns and I just feel much more defense effective with my shield.

I looked at both the XDS and the Shield 40, and went with the Shield as well

I am curious. Just how could you spend 2.5-hours cleaning a Shield?

As to the sights, you probably will find that "excessive amount of white space between the front sight and rear sight" is pretty nice when you get a little older.

It sounds like you are pretty happy with the Shield. I have to agree. I shot one for the first time last Saturday and liked the operation of the trigger, but couldn't call the one I shot smooth - just not a lot of take-up and a quick reset. Given how heavy the trigger was (probably 10-12#, maybe more), the gun I shot was acceptably accurate. It did seem to shoot about 4-inches higher at 25-yards than I would prefer.

We put about 75-rounds through it of various types of ammunition without any incident. Very comfortable gun to fire - much more so than my Kahr PM9, or any other compact 9x19 I have fired.

Others may scoff at the notion but I was very fond of the thumb safety. I imagined it would be poorly shaped, exceptionally stiff, hard to operate with the thumb, etc., etc. The safety on the pistol I fired was just right. It moved easily, but without moving too easily, was nicely sized and shaped, and it can be swept with the thumb, in my case. And... the safety is pressed DOWN (the proper way - Kahrs, unfortunately, are pressed up ).

Some comparative weights, loaded, in oz.:
Kahr PM9 20
Shield 24
442 & 637 17
PPK/.380 23
LWS/.32 12
3913 28
G27 26
G23 31
.45 Commander 33
In terms of weight vs. firepower, the Shield is not any sort of quantum leap, but it is more comfortable and manageable than lighter guns in the same caliber.

Anyone else think the the trigger is a bit on the heavy side? Ive slapped about 1k rounds so far and I dont see it getting any lighter.

I assume you are posting about your Shield trigger being heavy. Mine was over 8# out of the box and I dry fired over a thousand times and it did not appear to get any lighter. I installed an Apex hard sear only, and it dropped to 5-3/4#. About $50 bucks and an easy install. In retrospect the stock trigger was fine for personal defense, I use my Shield as a training gun during basic pistol instruction classes, and felt it would be better with the lighter trigger wt. for first time students.

Is a lighter trigger not a good idea if you holster with the safety on? I figured the two would cancel out.