Agreed. I look for the following:

1) Features (space,b/w,freebies)
2) Support (phone support is a must)
3) Prices
4) Number of years in the industry
5) Uptime
6) Reputation (need to know if they are known to be a poor/lousy host or a known-to-be-good host)

I also advise the people who start buying new hosting plans somewhere to pay attention to the AUP of the company with which they sign up a contract because this is also a very important issue.

My starting point is reliability. I find out the uptime, performance of a potential web host through un-biased reviews. I find out the experience of existing clients. I then look at other factors like customer support, hosting features, cpanel of web host, security, price etc.

You are right,megawebs