The hosting business is highly competitive. You just don't get the speed and stability anymore for the amount of money you had to pay for it a year or two ago. Too many people on the Net, too many sites, too many traffic-heavy forums, weblogs etc. utilizing God knows how many SQL databases although they wouldn't really need any. Too much crap on the Net altogether.
If you share a server nowadays, you have to count on porn, geek and other forums plus leech sites hindering your own service.
Bottom line: unless you have insider knowledge, you have to shell out more dough. What seems good and cheap at first more likely than not can turn to shite in a minute once one of those bandwidth hogs sneaks onto your server. That's the way it is.
BTW, Jim: Have kept track of developments and aside from some outages, I've had a rather consistent speed over here, much faster than when O. went online after the move. Then again, I haven't been here as frequently as I would have liked.