I'm annoyed as much as you are. I have a numerous projects I'm working on and obviously I have my own servers/environments/etc that I manage. Even though I don't _really_ need a VPS, I figured heck if someone can take care of all the hardware/networking stuff for me and just give me a decent-usable environment for such a minimal price - I simply couldn't resist an offer and moved testing of some of my projects to ChicagoVPS.
Bet in general I really don't want to jump on this whole "bashing ChicagoVPS and even going personal" bandwagon. Sh*t happens I guess.
Now regarding the backups and some people claiming it's "clients fault" - I just don't agree. First of all, normally I wouldn't care less about the backups and such since that's not why *I* got my VPS for, EXCEPT for the fact that they list it as a service they provide. And it's not just some random advertisement wording strategy (which I would be fine with - everyone does it), but they have actually written it straight in their end-user agreement that I "signed" (stating: "fail-over protection and backup systems.").
In other words I'd have still got their VPS even if they clearly indicated they have no backups nor are responsible for my data; but since they agreed to provide me such service - obviously I'm quite disappointed.
For example "GreenValueHost" (from the top of my head) says they provide SSL certificates for their VPS. Great, and if I wouldn't get one after signing in I would be rightfully annoyed, no? Same with backups - if they say they have my backup - I expect them to have my backup (and there's a difference between "hackers damaged our backups" vs "we have no backups for some nodes").
If anyone can offer the same or nearly the same deal (or knows of a similar deal), is not a reseller of CVPS service and is not associated with a company Chris has had his hands in - I'll defect.
Unfortunately, I believe that's the point. As an old saying goes - you get what you paid for. If there was an alternative that has the same price and is "better", 99% of people would move there.
On a bright side with all this happening at least I learned what are the major aspects of a decent VPS/dedicated-server provider