Nice discussion.
. The first thing i look for is the quality of support. A good hosting never asks you to place an order before providing support. I have used one which has live support system and it works great for me.
Though they dont have an actual support forum, but i'd really suggest you to choose one with support forums or support ticketing system.
Now a days most of the hosts allow a 48 hours - 7 days trial/ money back. Grab one and you can see the uptime and speed.
The next thing i look for is the control panel. I am quite familiar with cpanel, so i prefer a cpanel host.
BTW, i'm pretty much satisfied with my current host, but i wont spam here
.