[KarenInCa]

I think the most important thing you need to look for is one that's Hague compliant, and not one that is planning on being so. Also, you might want to secure a spot with an agency that is not only China specific, because if that agency relies only on China referrals, and the wait continues to go up, the agency could be in danger of going belly up.

Some agencies do all the footwork of the extra paperwork for you, while others have you do all the footwork. Our agency is smaller, and only on California; this makes it a bit riskier, but the plus is that our agency will have a smaller group each month. With our first daughter, there were only 3 families traveling, and all the children were from the same region. One of the other children slept in a crib right next to my daughter from the time each was found. This kind of coziness might not have happened with a larger agency.
Also, our agency is centered very close to where we live, so they did all the notarizing for free. With everything that needs to be notarized, that saved us probably around $300.
The downside to going with a local and smaller agency, is that they have their own set of rules that makes them more strict than China's rules. With our first daughter, we assumed they were telling us to do things because China imposed it, then we found out differently, and realized that our agency is overcautious about documenting employment in 2 or 3 different ways, etc.