Sorry if this sounded a bit narrow minded or ridiculous to you Boofer, but Leeners, New England Cheesemaking and The Cheesemakers are all hobbyist suppliers. Nothing wrong with that for the first few months of making cheese, but as I matured, I found that their product range, pricing, mystery cultures (pre-mixed in-house) and support (which was decent but not exactly professional guidance) - just weren't good enough.
On top of this, yes, there is the shipping thing: When someone ships me a delicate temperature-sensitive perishable culture in an uninsulated cardboard box that is subjected to days in the heat of trucks and sorting facilities - it tells me something about how they must treat these cultures in their own shops (especially so when they insist on pre-mixing it to keep me from knowing what's in it so that I don't buy it directly from companies like Danlac or The Dairy Connection).
There is something very reassuring about receiving a professionally packed COLD cultures that should be kept in my freezer. (and receiving them in original manufacturer's packaging). Heck, The Dairy connection wouldn't even ship to me stuff on Friday out of fear that it wouldn't make it through the weekend. Call me paranoid, but I like a culture dealer that has higher standards than the standards I have towards my cheese, not lower. To me this seems like a first rate, professional grade culture supplier (and their customers are indeed mostly commercial cheesemakers - from farmstead to factories). Furthermore, I have gotten free advice, support and PDF technical spec sheets for every product I asked for.
I was actually introduced to them by referral from the people at Danisco-Choozit. Why get a re-packed, re-mixed Danisco products (Maybe Danisco, who knows?) from New England Cheesemaking if I can just get the original at the same or lower prices from the company that Danisco trust?