Rackspace support is not just “help you when you are having trouble,” they will do sysadmin tasks for you, basically as much as you want. It’s more like light professional services + typical support. That’s why it costs more.
Yes, well aware. In-industry we call this "managed" and "un-managed" hosting.
All of my issues actually happened with "managed" hosting 10 years ago. I was in my early-20's and still getting my feet underneath me as a Linux administrator so having a backup was something I advocated when I was provisioning our hosting.
Frankly, it was probably pretty good for career development because their support staff was clueless with anything Linux administration, and if I needed an answer quick I was my only trustworthy resource. Like - basic LAMP (Linux, Apache2, MySQL, PHP) was completely beyond them even though that was the bread and butter of their business.
I haven't sprung for "managed" hosting ever since because it just taught me that I was the best person to handle my interests... and it lit a fire under my butt to get way better at my Linux chops!
