Lunarpages And Hostgator Reviews, Suggestions?

We have several different websites, and trying to spread them out to different datacenters and companies to find a good fit (after a fire at one datacenter had us down for days).

We first had HostGator (semi-dedicated account when they had those) and our main problem initially was them shutting the site down when it used too many resources and them putting up a contact billing message for our customers at the peak of an email campaign that sparked the high resource usage. After that heated frustration, we got on a dedicated account with them and haven't really had any/many problems since. So can't complain too much there other than wishing we got the dedicated first and for them to have used a more diplomatic way of transferring us to a higher account level when needed than the message most customers saw during the transition.

When The Planet had that fire that knocked servers down for days, we were effected with our HostGator server. Not that it's to be expected again, but wanted to get a different dedicated server for our other sites to have some options in case of disaster and having multiple servers/companies to move things around if needed.

So we then got a dedicated server with Lunarpages. I was not unhappy with their customer support response as they've been fairly prompt IMO (at least compared to some other comments I've read around since) but we seem to have never-ending troubles at first with SSL installation (self-install and then them installing) and then general domain DNS, resolving and configuration problems. We call them literally every day as it goes down every day (server up but site not resolving) and they get it back up and then it goes down again for whatever reasons yet to be determined apparently. Not sure if different techs doing something different each time, or server being hacked, or what. It's running essentially the same stuff I believe that's working on the other dedicated server but with different graphics mostly.

So the inability to get that figured out has us searching for a new dedicated server. Otherwise, I think we'd be happy there if it just stayed working. Here's what we have/require:

- Multiple domains each with own SSL certificate.

- php and mysql needed with highly-customized oscommerce scripts running on each domain that use a lot of queries and resources.

- cpanel or something similar preferred for admin.

- About 1000 visitors on each domain per day.

- Need some tech support for resolving problems when they come up or would just buy/manage server ourselves.

- Budgeted for a step above the low-end dedicated server level for many companies, but not over $300 a month looking at the market.

We are looking at a couple different hosting companies but haven't used any of them previously. Would still like to try another company for the other server before putting both on HostGator but having bad luck so far. We are considering:

- InMotion (advanced dedicated server account). I've communicated with sales/support and seem incredibly responsive as all comments I've read, but not a ton out there on them.

- Fused Network

- SteadFast Networks

- Gigenet

- LiquidWeb

Probably in that order from initial research, but hard to know what to believe sometimes. Sometimes you have to just find out for yourself, but hoping for suggestions in regards to the best bet to try next for our situation. Already have read some helpful information from others about some of the hosts previously here, but sometimes things change over time (as it seems like with Lunarpages then and now). Hopefully our experiences with HostGator (both positive and negative) and Lunarpages helps others out too.