As you can see, Jeff, this is a subject about which folks can get rather passionate. With the exception of Street Beasts, I doubt that any of the manufacturers can be considered bad. For every disgruntled customer, there is at least one "gruntled" one. It comes down to price (you'll never get an IM at a VS price), features, and location. It really is a good idea to pick a manufacturer that is either nearby, or can provide long distance support. If you're on the west coast you could get good service from either VS, JPS, or Thunder Ranch. On the east coast you would probably do better with Beck. In between you'll have to make a judgement call based on what your research here tells you. IM is in a different category, and a different price point.
Oh yeah - the owner's manual comment was sort of a joke, since I wrote the Beck manual.