Do You Trust Your Vet?

I know it may seem that I'm bitter against vets, but trust me when I say I'm not.  I've always wanted to work with animals, and so has Matt(who actually did work at a vets office).  I'm also not mad at vets because of the recent rise in dog deaths in my family....3 in less than one year to be exact.  May was just very old - 17 years.  Wicket had something obvioulsy wrong that could not be fixed.  Now Ruby however...I do blame vets for.  I also apologize now if some people get mad at me for posting this, but when something is on my mind, it usually stays there until it's written down somewhere.
The vet I have the most problem with right now is Alta Vet in Utah.  That's the vet we've always taken our animals to.  But after learning some things about animals and vet teching from Matt, the internet, and the books from a vet school under my bed.  --I'm also not claiming to 'know it all' I'm just sharing my opinion--
One.  Their prices are ridiculous.  I live in California, one of the most overpriced states, and if their prices range above ours you know they're crazy. 
Two. They charged for things even when they were told not to do them. 
Three. They are full of crap!  My mom took Frodo in there to weigh him on their scale.  He yawned and they started saying "oh it looks like he may have this...maybe we should check him for that...." from a yawn on a very tiny dog.   Or telling Sonnie she should just put Wicket down if she wasn't going to get his teeth looked at...because his teeth were somehow effecting his brain?  There has been quite a few times like these.
And then there is the vet office my parents changed to because of Alta.  I honestly don't know the name anymore.  They said they were good and seemed to know what they were doing.  Than came the day they took Ruby in to get spayed.  As far as I remember - they gave them no verbal instructions just gave them a paper.  As they took her home, she acted sleepy and slow.  But because the paper said that was normal and not everyone knows what to look for things got worse.  They wondered if they should take her in, but it was around midnight now.  Not only was it better to go at home in the arms of her best friend, but it would of been a lot for an emergency stop.  She died that night.
From what we were told, we concluded that she either had internal bleeding from the vet not stitching correctly or her stomach flipped (best known from Marley and Me).  Out of my dad's request I didn't contact the vet office in anyway though I wanted to badly, expecially after they told me that they called him to tell them what happened - even if to just stop it from happening to another family (which I doubt since no legal acion was taken...and I'm not even one of those people who likes to take legal action over everything), and instead of saying "Oh we're so sorry for your loss" or taking away the fees for the procedure they said "What are you going to do to us?"  I about died! From my memory, my family has never talked about a dog as much as they did Ruby (and still do sometimes).  My brother's best friend taken away by a careless vet and not even as much as an apology even just out of symathy? 
OR! (Last one I swear) the vet who came to look at a horse we had here and told us that we were lieing about what we SAW happened to the horse because "I know, I'm a vet." .....
Long story short....know who you're taking your animals to.  Do as much research as you can.  Ask friends.  There are even websites where you can look up reviews on pretty much anything.  I know you can't know everything about a vet office.  I'm just saying don't be one of those people that listens to the vet mearly because they have the title vet.