A little late in my response but if I may, transactional business(sales charge/loaded funds a,b,c shares) in investing is definitely becoming a way of the past. Advisory and fee based business is what most investors are doing these days if consulting with an advisor.
It's always great to consult with advisors that are well licensed and credentialed in their respective field and practices. I am in the process of attaining my CFP designation currently and as part of a team, we hold various securities licenses such as series 22, 24, 39, 55, 1, 6, 7, 63, 65, and 66 and various designations ChFC, AEP, CLU, CLTC. As a practice we manage over 50 million in assets and use various research tools (both fundamentally and technically) such as mentioned morningstar, dorsey wright etc. As far as fund companies I do like some of the major players in the market mentioned, but also like others such as Ivy Funds and Evergreen Investments to name a few as well as Putnam which is a larger player. ETFs can also be advantageous for certain clients but not specific indices. Also alternative investments such as some REIT(Real Estate Investment Trusts) but only a certain few that there and LPs(Limited Partnerships) can be a great way to diversify and/or tax manage your portfolio.
As stated previously the relationship and trust you have with your advisor plays a key role when it comes to your overall plan. Of course you can be with a broker/advisor that may have hit a homerun one year, but consistency and long term investing is the key so if your looking for consistent singles, doubles, and the occasional triple to put it into baseball terms that's what our goal is, which is to beat the respective benchmarks and manage risk within the clients overall financial plan.
I too believe that an independent approach is a great perspective to have due to the fact you may not be biased, but several of my friends do work at firms that do have proprietary funds and programs and I believe they are very competent and give good advice as well.
And yes I 2highpsi, I mainly stay in Florida but do have several clients in the central Ohio area.
Wow, I meant to type a sentence or two but anyway hope some of this information may be useful to somebody.