Hosting Question

Hi Guys

I hope this is the right place to post this. I am in need of a new web hosting company. I have tried out Movable Type and Typepad but they just do not offer the same flexibility and user friendliness that WordPress does.

I currently run a few wordpress blogs and am interested in consolidating them utilizing wordpres mu. My main requires are:

1. Abiity of the host to handle WordPress / traffic spikes. I have been on a few web hosting companies that cannot even handle a small traffic spike for my currenly hosted WP blog and they end up shutting it down without warning.

2. I want to be able to use multiple domains. (www.blog1.com->mainblog.com/blog1, http://www.blog2.com->mainblog.com/blog2, etc). I also want http://www.blog1.com, etc to show up in google, not mainblog.com/blog2)

3. I Also need tech support to be available to me. I don’t want to have to submit a trouble ticket to some mysterious tech support department only to get my question answered 20 hours later. I also need these people to understand wtf they are doing.

As background I manage a few websites for different people. I have a fair bit of technical knowledge and am proficient with PHP. The reason why I tried Typepad was because I didn’t have to bother with “maintaining” anything and the reason I am not going with wordpress.com is because I cannot display ads.

If there is hosting companies that provide this “blog management”, I would also be interested in hearing of them.

I don’t mind paying more money for hosting as long as it’s good. I have been doing research and thus far am un decided. Can anyone provide me some suggestions? thanks!!!

Chuck