Virtual Server Options

While this site is graciously hosted by Iain I’m in the process of developing another site (non-blog) and the more I think it through the more likely it is that it’s going to drive a not insignificant amount of traffic and I definitely want it to be snappy all the time (as opposed to slowing down when Iain decides to download too much at once).  At the same time I keep playing with different technologies from J2EE to Ruby on Rails to custom perl apps and whatever else, so being able to set up whatever I want is a pretty big bonus.  Sounds like a virtual server might just be the best bet but I really don’t want to spend much money.

Anyone got suggestions for cheap virtual hosting providers that are still of reasonable quality?  Australian based is a bonus but not required.  The best looking one I’ve found so far is EApps though I really haven’t looked around much.