[beachstartup]

right - for individuals who are trying to run a server on a shared server/network (VM), you're going to have a bad time... a real bad time.

however, it's not this bad if you have a 'real' infrastructure i.e. a colocated environment with your own IP space. it sounds like you were mainly dealing with the fallout from bad behavior from your neighbors on the shared network.

having said all that, it still might be worth a switch if you use google apps a lot (we do) because of the integration with gmail. we switched and now use IMAP to access our company google apps gmail. i really dislike the web interface.

[badgersandjam]

Actually I had a nice dedicated box until 2013 at a reputable host in the UK. Unfortunately I no longer wished to fish out for £95/month for it. Still had problems even though the thing was well maintained and there were no bad neighbours. It was less noisy than a VM at Linode however, so you're right there.

[beachstartup]

yeah, i meant if you actually have ARIN IP space or get allocated at least a routed /24 from a tier 1 ISP... not a cheap dedicated box in some datacenter that suffers from the same problems as shared VM networks.