Stephen, we use 3 different hosting companies to offer the 3 different levels of hosting our wide range of clients require.

Firstly we have a reseller account with http://www.fasthosts.co.uk, its pretty good and reliable and the online control panel is excellent, it gives us full control over email accounts and ftp and many many other features which is perfect for our smaller clients because it doesnt cost us much.

Next is a reseller account with http://www.Netbenefit.com, the hosting we purchase is always shared windows 2000, the uptime and connection speeds are excellent, DNS management is good and so it the email management, they also have a basic online control panel. They are more expensive but you get what you pay for.

Next is a Dedicated server with either BT, UUNet, or the slightly cheaper http://www.dedicated-servers.co.uk

The features i look for are:
- Windows platform
- CDONTS or simular
- Backup
- Stats
- Email management
- DNS management
- FTP management
- DSN management
- fast connection speeds

Thats all really, so far we havent had the requirement for .net or a large selection of COM's or even a great demand for SQL server. Usually when a client needs these things we sell them a dedicated server!!

If i was going to switch it wouldnt be because it was cheaper, im prepared to pay more and have better service/uptime/connection/helpdesk rather than cheap hosting. Its quality, not quantity!

Hope that helps?