I ran a site that was hosted on Dreamhost for several years and the "client" was with them a previous year before I came along. I don't remember any down time at all. I basically just ftp'd to the thing and used the cpanel to manage email lists and email aliases. Pretty standard stuff.

I did stream a lot of video content from their servers and the performance was good for our use. All of this was with the basic plan.

One thing I do remember is how unprofessional the newsletters were. You'll know what I mean if you sign up.

We ended up moving to a local host for about 1/3 the cost. We don't have the same level of service or up time, but it meets our needs for what the site does.