I used Dreamhost once, after I ended my hosting to move to a VPS, they locked me out of my administration panel completely. I still had my domain with them, but no access to it, and the website actually told me that I needed to open a hosting plan to get access. I had to go through their support process to get access (or really, to transfer out, there was no way I was staying after that).
I immediately transferred to Moniker - they're great, they let you configure absolutely everything. I think what I learned was to stay away from companies that do both domains and hosting. If they just do domains, they understand that you are always going to be sending your traffic elsewhere.
Great point, thanks. I have a hosting account there because I don't want to manage a VPS for my (static) blog and the other low traffic site I host. I didn't even realize you can't only use them for domains, that's a huge gotcha.
I immediately transferred to Moniker - they're great, they let you configure absolutely everything. I think what I learned was to stay away from companies that do both domains and hosting. If they just do domains, they understand that you are always going to be sending your traffic elsewhere.