we've been with 4 different hosts in the 4 weeks we've had a site live, and to be honest my opinion is that pretty much most of them are a joke. We tried 2 US hosting companies, including Globat, which was absolutely shocking.... completely incompetent tech support who knew less than I do, and I'm a web designer, not a 'techie'.
Recently been with Pipex in the UK, which we opted for as their broadband service was wicked. Our shared hosting account went down loads of times, and then finally went down completely for 2 days while they rebuilt the server. We have just moved to their VPS, which they wouldn't help me with (I had to sign up for it myself and set it all up), and thats been pretty damn solid.... although I'm yet to say I'm impressed!