I have nothing against slicehost, but a key point in the OP was price. Ever since their June RAM bump, they (on paper) offer a much better value.
Its also worth pointing out that of the various benchmarks I've seen (a handful on blogs and there are some pretty key threads on webhostingtalk.com), Linode typically comes out on or near the top.
On top of that, you add their participation to things like Rails Rumble and their data center choice (just missing Asia), and it all makes a compelling argument.
Even before the Linode memory upgrade, Linode was more competitive for many uses because they offered 32 bit systems, whereas Slicehost only has memory-hungry 64 bit systems:
Good catch, I didn't realize that. Before writing my article and switching to Linode, I politely asked if that was going to happen any time soon, but they said no, and the rest is history. It took them, it looks like, over a year to add that functionality.
Its also worth pointing out that of the various benchmarks I've seen (a handful on blogs and there are some pretty key threads on webhostingtalk.com), Linode typically comes out on or near the top.
On top of that, you add their participation to things like Rails Rumble and their data center choice (just missing Asia), and it all makes a compelling argument.