I'm in the linode SSD beta and results are favorable so far. Here's a simple block write test I ran across Linode (SSD and HDD), Ramnode (SSD), and DO (SSD):
I think you might need to add the 'conv=fdatasync' option to your benchmark there in order to get real results - otherwise you could just be looking at results from the hosts cache:
Even then, the host could be lying and telling your VPS that a write was successful when it was not actually written to the host disk. Still in the hosts disk cache, which means great performance but if the host ever crashes, all data on your VPS disk will likely be lost.
With that aside - when I'm looking for remote dev nodes to mess around on, DO and Ramnode are both good bets. They are cheap and discardable.
But when I want top-notch support and uptime, I go with linode. (Currently I have nodes at all three.)