aHugeList - would you mind mentioning who you had bad experiences with so we can be sure to avoid?
Matt
Sure thing

Started out with yahoo - AGHHHH they lost all my files TWICE in the first year, and once in the second year. This time when they found them they deleted them for adult content (it was an erotic story) closed my account and my yahoo ID (no contact - they just did it) and took me 3 months to get my domain name back - thank goodness the company they resell for gave it back to me in the end. The adult content was my fault - their incompetence and poor communication was theirs! (plus I didn't know at the time they charge way too much)
Tried a new start up company recommended by a friend (cant remember the name blue-something???) that vanished three months in with my $.
Next I went with servage for a normal account. Cheap and ok for first year - then three server wide hacks, poor support and huge down time since then. I don't have any sites there now but they ended up giving me so much credit for their f-ups that Im still paid until mid 2010 lol - its a shame - they COULD be good but prefer to lie than fix things.
Hostmonster
Paid and signed up for a normal account but they wanted me to jump through so many hoops to confirm my identity (overseas phone calls, faxes, heaps of ID that Im not happy handing over) I canceled without using them - just too much drama for a simple hosting account.
Namecheap - I love them as a registrar but they don't (or didnt then) have cpanel - I found their user interface strange so I canceled
Serverwow - purchased a master reseller account. Paid, set up. A week later I went to log in and my account was gone, so is serverwow, so is my money!
Dreamhost - seems ok, but support was very very slow with some set up questions. Then I just forgot I had signed up with them and I didn't get around to using the account so I canceled.
I am now using hostgator as I stated - other than being lied to I have found them the best so far.
I have this month set up a couple of reseller accounts with a new host.
Accounts only up a week when they decided to shift us all to a new server after banning updates for 3 days (not a good start) If they improve or get worse I'll add my experiences with them later - Id like to give them more than a week before I declare them crap lol