>> get the impression that these guys are competent
Well Obviously I'm not happy that there was a problem in the first place, but Im well aware that things can and do go wrong.
In the grand scheme of things Ive not really been with them that long, and I still feel I took a bit of a "chance" since I'd never really heard of them before.. but all the research (believe me it took a long time to decide) I did came back good.
Obviously they arent the likes of 1+1 or 123-reg (whom Ive used in the past and ditched), but I had several requirements that some of the larger hosting providers didnt do without running into 4 figures pa.
A couple of other hosting services turned me down for their packages since my bandwidth requirements were a bit too high for what considered normal usage :/
So far support have been very good and I dont think Ive ever had to wait longer than about 1/2 hour for a reply to a ticket. Ive asked them some out of norm requests and generally theyve obliged and even on occasion gone the extra mile (re the server move). I dont think you'd get that sort of service nor flexability at one of the larger hosts. They do seem pretty much on the ball.