Virtual Dedicated Hosting Recommendations

[AZ Pete]

Hi All,

I'm getting increasingly fed up with my current hosting provider 
(GoDaddy) for my virtual dedicated box.  While their support is stellar 
for my shared hosting box, they're virtual dedicated support is quite 
poor (in both turnaround time and technical aptitude). I'm looking for 
recommendations for a reliable host with competent tech support.

This is to run a business website for my brother's company for which I 
maintain the web application to be run on this server.
I would need these features:
10Gb hard disk space & 500Gn bandwidth/month
Ability to talk to a tech support person in the virtual dedicated dept 
(not just email/chat support)
GUI admin interface (i.e. Plesk or similar)
Ability to config software to suit our needs (i.e. mail server, SSH, web 
server, etc)
Ability to send out a (potentially) large amount of email without SMTP 
limits (our software manages technical conferences for the IEEE)

I'm paying about $25/month now and would like to keep it in that ball 
park if needed. I'd be willing to go a bit higher for stellar tech support.

Any recommendations or thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter