I'm not sure you can make too many decisions based both on quality and origin; buying the best (you can afford) often means looking outside your own pond.

Case in point: I ended up getting two Profoto 600R monolights, which were excellent, just fantastic.
However, I recently put them up for sale since I wanted to use them outdoors, and I found that reasonably-priced portable power options for the 600R were limited.
I also didn't like the idea of a top-heavy monolight losing a battle to strong winds.

I was in New York this week-end, I picked up a Profoto 7b outfit locally, and couldn't be happier.
The Profotos feel, look and perform better than any other flash/monolight set-up I've had before (including Alien Bees, Dynalites, Bowens and Elinchroms), and I'm sure this latest 7b kit will surpass my high expectations for it.
It feels unbelievably solid, robust and powerful; well-engineered, well thought-out and executed simply but elegantly.