I was having nasty problems with an LDS, and regularly got crud over every piece of gear I owned. That and there was always the assumption that if I was buying something low end, it was because I was uninformed, but really did have a spare 600 bucks sitting in my checking account. For a while, I became exclusively an internet-equipped diver, because I got sick of arguing, and didn't actually have any trouble with that service-wise or otherwise, but missed the advice and such, so I finally found a great LDS closer to my home than the first one, actually, that actually gives competitive prices, WONDERFUL service, and they *don't* bash. Despite not selling Mares, when I first went in there with my Proton Ice, one of the people working there grabbed for it and said "Oooh! It's so little!" They give me recommendations based on my specific needs rather than just what is best, encourage research, and if I want a gear item that isn't from one of their lines, they do not "punish" me for shopping elsewhere. At the first store, yeesh, coming in with a tank from another dive shop was like being caught cheating on a lover "What's that?" "What?" "What's the label on that tank say?" "Uh... nothing... I found this tank." "You... you w****!!!!" Yeesh. What's also nice is two of my favorite people at my new LDS are fairly minimalistic diving-wise, so they like offering alternate solutions to expensive stuff.
I haven't heard too much nasty stuff about ScubaPro among CA divers? It's not my favorite gear, but it appears to last forfriggingever. My first BC was an (uncomfortable) Scubapro that was well over a decade old, and worked perfectly. Jim has a reg of theirs that he loves too.