For UK hosting I've had very good experiences with:

www.sonnethosting.co.uk
www.clook.net
www.amard.com

for shared/reseller hosting on UK servers.

Of all the US companies I ever...

Heh heh heh - I've heard plenty of complaints about 1&1 holding onto client domain names - not one I'd touch with a ten-foot pole. :)

As for lunarpages - their idea of spurning vBulletins is...

I know www.doreo.com make a point of specialising in hosting phpbb's - they host phpbb.com itself.

As with all things in web hosting, you more or less get what you pay for. Never get sucked in by offers that look too good to be true - because they usually are.

LOL!! An astute observation. :)