Linode has a $10 plan
linode.com
linode.com
I also wondering why they don't offer more services like AWS.
However, AWS recently increase EC2 pricing (almost 100%) for better hardware (http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/).
I would also like to see them use their Nodebalancers (Linode version of a loadbalancer) to expand across datacenters. It could be nice of them to provide an easier solution to load-balancing between regions so if I set up my app in each of their datacenters, and add a nodebalancer, they could help me lead the traffic to the closest source.
As for innovation they have added LongView recently https://www.linode.com/longview
You can see their status page for all of the issues they've reported: https://status.digitalocean.com/ (mostly network connectivity issues)
Feel free get in touch (email in profile) if you want to talk more about my experience with DO and how I try to architect around their network issues.
I've not had any issues, their support is great, performance has been great, no complaints. But obviously I'm not using it for anything critical...