Moving From VPS - Choosing Dedicated System Setup

I would really appreciate some advice about changing from a VPS to a dedicated server and getting a good 24/7 server management service

I know I need more Ram than I’ve got now and I know I need a managed server. Beyond that I’m not sure what I need and all the info I’m reading is making me more uncertain and more worried about making the wrong decision.

I moved from shared hosting to VPS a year ago. I have now started to outgrow the VPS.

The VPS has 512 MB Ram, 10% Burstable Resources. The site has been up since the last crash for 78 days but it is maxing out the Ram during the busy parts of the day and has high load averages.

There is one site on the VPS with static HTML pages. Last month’s figures were approximately 186,000 MB of Data transfer and 4,362000 page views. Average of 30,000 visitors per day

I want to add another 4 or 5 sites small sites. Some of those will be XML feed sites. No forums, chat or reselling.

So what to choose?

1.Operating System
CentOS or Fedora Core Linux 6
2.Control Panel
cPanel 11 or Parallels Pro
3.Processor
Single Core or Dual Core
4.Ram
1GB or 2GB
5.Hard Drive
Single with backup, RAID or RAID with backup drive

Server Management Services and Monitoring 24/7
I’m using WebSite Pulse for monitoring at the moment and I’m very happy with them but they don’t do server management. I need a company to secure, protect, update and keep the server running 24/7

platinumservermanagement.com seem to offer a good service for only $29 per month. Don’t know what they are like. They only manage cPanel, don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Would appreciate other suggestions.

Basically I’ve got to decide do I stick with current hosting service and move to a dedicated server choosing from the options I have listed or move to another hosting service offering managed VPS with more resources like wiredtree.com. Don’t know what Wired Tree is like just read about them in the forum.