Been using them for years now, no major complaints. They stay on top of Rails tech, which is really cool. I wouldn't risk a business site with them, but for fun piddly sites, I dig 'em.
For virtual dedicated, I use Slicehost (http://www.slicehost.com) to host The Photo Stream (http://www.thephotostream.com) and they have been excellent for the past two months.
I've been using Dreamhost for a while now (to host my blog) and it has been pretty much okay but I wouldn't host any critical stuff on it.
WebFaction (http://www.webfaction.com) and Slicehost (http://www.slicehost.com) are pretty popular lately (although not _that_ cheap). I would probably go with webfaction for a django app.