virtual private server? advice requested

[Reid Priedhorsky <reid@reidster.net>]

Dear all,

I currently run e-mail and web services for my little domain from my home
box, connected to the net with DSL. The other day, the network burped and
I was offline for several hours...

Basically, I've grown frustrated with trying to host important services
off a consumer-grade network link. A little googling and Wikipedia-ing
reveals that what I probably want is a "virtual private server". Then I
can still have the control and tinkering power I have now but without the
worries of consumer DSL and electricity nor the expense of a dedicated
co-located server.

Hence my request for advice. I am looking for suggestions on finding a
good VPS hosting company, or suggestions on Google-fu for effective
research on my own (so far I have managed to find only masses of adverts),
or pointers on trying something else.

Some thoughts on what I think I need (please advise if I'm making
mistakes, I'm new at this VPS thing):

1. One IP address that is not on any spam blacklists.
2. Enough horsepower to run:
   a. an Apache instance serving ~10,000 static hits on a busy day,
      usually much less
   b. an Exim instance accepting ~1,000 incoming e-mails daily,
      including spam, with rare floods of 20,000k+ backscatter spams
   c. enough SpamAssassin to scan the e-mail
   d. enough IMAP server to let me read the e-mail
3. ~10G of disk space.
4. Debian, preferably Lenny.
5. Cheap, ideally in the $10-15/mo range.
6. Reliable.

Any and all advice cheerfully accepted and much appreciated, and follow-up
questions happily answered.

Reid