I just started ordering from Sweetwater and I like their attitude (and the candy!) and I like the variety of pro equipment in the Sweetwater catalog. I'm giving them my business whenever possible.
The axis of evil (Musicians Friend/Music123/Guitar Center) take their customers for granted. Their No Haggle policy SUCKS and their managers are unhappy, flippant, and generally unpleasant little people. I'm taking my buisness elsewhere.
I started ordering from Sweetwater back in 2002. I always deal with the same guy and he knows every piece of gear I have whether I bought it from him or not. With Sweetwater, I always feel like I'm getting small shop service and that's a good thing. On the couple of occasions when I had to send something back, it was all done very easily and required nothing more from me than to pack the item back up and call my salesman.
And I never feel like I'm getting bullshitted by them. Whenever I call to order something, my guy there will give me the good and bad of what I'm interested in. It's not to sell me something else, it's to make sure I'm going to be happy with the purchase.
One time when I had trouble getting Allegro to work with my computer and my Motif, the salesman had me on a 4 way conference call with his tech person, someone from the software company, and someone from yamaha. The problem got solved. That's some good service right there.
Part of the order I just made with them was for a Mac Pro 8-core. They were out of stock and when I ordered he told me it would be in by the 13th. A lot of companies give you a date and then make excuses as to why things aren't happening as promised. They told me the 13th and it turns out it's in today. They're going to load up my software and I'll have it all here next week.
I'm also going to throw Mercenary a good plug. I needed a John Hardy M1 for session recently. I called them up on a Monday morning and got the last one they had in stock. They shipped it and it was at my house the next day via UPS Ground (yeah, one day via ground!). So kudos to Fletcher and the rest at Mercenary. They'll get more business from me in the future.
And you're right about the Trio of Terror, they don't give a rat's ass about their customers. A guitar center near me kept a Larivee out for sale for months after I showed them that the top was splitting at the seam. It wasn't an easy problem to spot and it was only after I'd gone in to play the guitar a third time (I was considering buying it) that my fingers happened to land on the crack. I told them that day about it and came back two weeks later to see it still hanging there. I told them again and came back a month later and it was still hanging there. The fuckers probably sold it to someone.