You could say that I am "shooting myself in the foot" by letting out my gems of experience . I don't claim for a second I know all the answers but thought it was about time contribute to the WWW to maybe help out those struggling web designers (if there is such a thing !)

Its cheaper in the long run a virtual server and have complete control over your resources . Even better would be to have a dedicated server but you need more dosh !

Why ?
You can ssh to root and do just about anything you like . If you are like me and you use linux (ubuntu in my case ) you can use sftp via nautilus - extra cool and fast upload those files with the ease of a GUI . You can also run the latest scripts available as your server can have the latest php version and apache server .

I find plesk 9 a great tool and easy to use . I also run ubuntu 8.04 lts . The same distro on my pc .....helps build your linux knowledge at the same time .