Hi Top Dog,
This is my first post but hopefully I can help. I have used InstantPrint about 10-15 times now for small jobs of up to a 1000 pieces. I have to say that the quality of the print is excellent, I cannot complain one bit. In the whole time I have used them they have cocked up twice. One was a finishing mistake as the sales person had forgot to take down pass on that I wanted a Mat Lam finish. it pushed the job from a friday delivery to a Tuesday delivery - they did however pay for the job in the end so the client walked away with a free print job so that was good. The other was when I had supplied the document with 3mm bleed and stated in capitals, bold and 20pt type that i did not want any borders they still went and printed it with a border. When I contacted them and said it's not good enough the boss started being quite rude and insulting in his replies to me.
However, after an exchange of emails and me explaining that his team needed to go back and study a bit more or allow me to come down and show them how to use the software they were using... did he go back to the job, re-check and find the bleeds I had put on the job originally. I also made him re-read the email I sent in the beginning and see that I had requested it in writing. (I'd also sent a Jpeg of how the job was supposed to look). After an hour I got a very groveling email expressing his sincere apologies to me.
Apart from these two incidents, they have been very good. I will continue to stick with them for small jobs as I don't want to take a punt with a new company doing an extended run on an existing client. For price they cannot be beaten and they quality is very very good for that price. However, they need to sack two members of their staff and replace them with half a brain cell, it would twice as effective like that. ;-)
As for Michael the boss, well he should learn to use the software and stop making himself look like a complete and utter fool with his lack of print knowledge. It shouldn't be a designers job to tell him how to run his production department.
For all their faults they do do a good job and yes the price is correct on the website. They even go lower with the offers they do every few weeks so well worth it.