You forgot to mention one v. important thing: what is your budget like? Giottos is a nono for me too. Real life experience: I had a friend who bought one (can't rem. which model), while he was carrying his setup around (300D + 70-400 f4L + 550ex on monopod), the screw holding the plate to the base of the camera somehow loosened and the whole rig fell to the ground, lucikly the flash + lens got away, cam body got the worse impact, whole hotshoe torn off but luckily repairs costed less than $100. We found out the screw thread for the screw on the lens plate was not tight enough.
A good ball head would be an Arca Swiss style ballhead, which accepts dovetail style lens plates. Currently the good ones in the market are Markins M10/Q3 (made in S. Korea, my personal recommendation), KanRinPoche (China made Arca Swiss clone), Acratech Ultimate Ballhead. Benro also offers Arcas Swiss style ballheads but I am not sure of how its performance like.
If you dun foresee using heavy big lens (i.e. bigger than 70-200mm f2.8), the Markins Emile Q3 is excellent. Should be costing around $480 from John 3:16. TK Foto Technic also carries them. Call them to check for availability. KanRinPoche is carried by Cathay Photo.
Good ballheads are not cheap, but why compromise your gear if you go for the cheaper stuff? My friend mentioned in the incident above found out the hard way. In the end he ditched the Giottos and went for a Markins M10.