I guess. It's just down to question of getting what you pay for, basically. I'm already paying plenty for my ISP's server. I switched back to the German one to see if it was doing any better on dropped articles and whatnot. It really wasn't, but I kept using it for awhile because I had already reconfigured my newsreader. (I used to have leafnode get articles from *both* servers, but I stopped bothering with leafnode after it became practical just to download articles in real time, as needed)
My ISP's server is giganews, which is a place lots of people recommend anyway. Ounce for ounce, I don't see any substantive difference between the two, and neither one of them carries ABPW, so there's no compelling reason to take a crowbar to my wallet in this case.
Especially not with $5,000+ (maybe ++++; I'm still waiting to see how bad the damage is going to wind up) in medical bills looming man. $13 is $13. I'll get these bastards paid one $13 at a time. It's *time* to be a cheap bastard.