Dreamhost is letting me down too. They had the same problems last year after a power failure which caused me to cancel my account. This year it's network problems. I believe they over sell way to much. Databases are pilied on to overwrought dedicated database servers which means any database powered site, wordpress for instance is only as fast as the database server lets it be.
But for the price and features you really cannot complain too much. They are good at refunding your money when you as for it.
HostGator is decent but getting ssh access is a rigmarole and nothing can be chmod 777. If those things don't bother you, I'd recommend HostGator.
