While I'm glad everyone is honest it was good to read the posts of Flingwing and EC. I am incredibly fortunate to have an excellent instructor now but the ones I started with were burned out and it showed. It's too bad CFIs don't earn a few more $ to keep more of the cream of the crop instructing. The wages of the CFI are but a small percentage of the per hour cost of flying and I'd gladly pay twice the going rate to have someone excited and motivated teaching me.
I think an excellent instructor would get you where you want to go in fewer hours saving money on flight time in addition to the superior skills you would garner.