7
Well, I decided to give
PerfectSQL a try, even though they had problems with their order page when I first checked it.
So far everything has been wonderful, just got my site transferred over this past weekend. With the web and sql servers being separate does make a difference. About a one second difference to my old host, their cpu was always loaded.
Reliability, time will tell. But I do have some notes now to add to the faq for site migration. It was easy really.