Level of business skills in freelancers drasticly going downhill

I'm finding myself hitting brick wall after brick wall, with the exception of a few decent freelancers, the majority of people i've dealt with just simply lack any real business skills.

I've sent quotes off to 5 seperate designers this week (about 3 days ago) and no one has got back to me, one of the 5 designers I actually contacted about a month ago and it took 2 weeks just for a quote to come through.

I have also hired a coder (Sam Granger) who is now 2 1/2 weeks over a proposed deadline for coding work.

My hat really does go off to Anthony, about a week ago I asked for a design, it was done within 48 hours and to my specification. Seriously, alot of people can learn a thing or too from him.

Anyway, anyone know any decent designers? I know there alot of good designers here but this is for my biggest project and i'm looking for something stunning, budget is fairly good....Anthony showed me www.fubon.co.uk (that's the sort of quality i'm after) However, he hasn't got back to me yet.

Cheers....sorry for rant, just fed up of not being able to find a reliable designer/coder.