There is always a trade-off. At least for me. There's no way I can afford to put all my sites on my "ideal" web hosts. For sites that are not so critical, I am willing to pay a cheaper price at the cost of a little more "down" time and inconvenience than my more important sites.
I can highly recommend
greenlionnet.com - their dedicated servers look affordable.
I cant say about prices since I havent looked at any other hosts, but worth every penny.
It is an extremely proficient company and usually manages to answer support tickets in 10 minutes or less.