Sorry, can't add any "professional" input on this subject. However, I can throw in a few comments from my own experiences in the hobby...

"Stage <whatever> porting" doesn't mean zip to me anymore for just the reasons stated above. Tell me what you're going to do for the $ and we'll go from there.

No way I'll pay anybody to put a grinder to my heads who doesn't have the ability to flow test their results. Hmmm... guess that's partly why I bought my own flow bench a few years ago.

I've paid for cylinder head work from a number of different shops over the years and seen the work of quite a few others. At this point I'd say from what I've seen (limited as this may be in the grand scheme of things), maybe half of the work done was worth the money charged IMO. It's pretty disappointing to see the results of some "professional's" work, only to have to box the heads up and take them elsewhere to have the same job redone correctly.

It's a big confidence boost knowing I've found a cylinder head shop I trust to work on my stuff, even though I've got to ship my parts out of state to get the job done right. Too bad I haven't found a local shop to do basic block machine work, etc., that I feel the same way about.