Its very difficult to find reliable services at low costs, especially as most are resellers, therefore support is never available by phone, and downtime can take a week of hopeless negotiations.

So - first I would avoid resellers
2 - make sure they have a phone, and you call them a few times.
3 - maybe look for a local pro service which you can visit and install your own bits and pieces.

As far as word of mouth goes, in the uk I heard 1and1 are good, also locally to UK (relatively) I heard - flexservers in Rotterdam are good.

So far Ive run virtual dedicated, but with a bit more investment I imagine dedicated is much better.

But my biggest point is check out the support, and double check it, and keep checking before you buy! - the last thing you want is to talk to a support group in Russia, who then need to talk to the datacentre in texas, and who never get anything done!