Hi Maria,
I can tell you regarding your second point that I asked Miguel that once and got a very straight forward and honest answer (by the way, they always respond quite fast to inquiries and trouble tickets and have always been very helpful to me).
With the amount of accounts they host, the most efficient way of managing time and assisting all clients, the online support system allows them to be fair to everyone and to focus on the task of fixing the problem.
Although I will admit that at times it would be nice to call support, being in a support function myself, I can attest to the need to be able to focus your effort and so totally understand and support their decision.
As for sample sites, that's kind of hard to show you for any host, since the clients make the sites, not the host.
I can tell you that Thirdsphere has a lot of clients and also that some of the biggest marketers use their services (and many of the small ones like me hehe).
There are quite a lot of options available and also templates you can use, if you are not a traditional webmaster/designer.
If you go to
http://freestuf.thirdsphereplus.com/ (please note, this is my affiliate link, if this is wrong, moderators, please replace it with a generic link) you can see the features overview in the table on the left and at the bottom of the page, you can take a tour of all the features of Thirdsphere.
I hope this helps in your research Maria.
Regards,
Xavier