I was not really sure where on WPW would be the best place to post this so I posted it in the safest. If a mod feels I would get a better response from a different area please move it.

Now for my dilemma. Well really it is my friends, but they came to me with a situation and now I need to go to everyone here as I not quite sure and do not want to lead my friend down the wrong road.

My friend came to me and asked if I would assist them in programming a dynamically driven web site with a CMS system and went into great detail as to what they wanted. To be honest what they were asking of me to do is out of my programming skill level and this is what I told them. So they proceeded to contact various web designers and found one that they really like and whose price was about half of what I though it should be "$5k-$10k". The designer does very nice work and can do the work required but they require the site be hosted by them as the site will only work on their server. Their hosting price isn't bad and starts at $20 a month for unlimited bandwidth use. My hang up with it is the fact that they can not move it to a different server and my fear is:
1. What if they raise the price?
2. What if tech support gets real bad or becomes a paid thing?
3. You can what if this thing to death.

I'm not that familiar with the back-end workings of a dynamic driven site and so I'm asking here.

1. Is this the norm that the designer has to host it?
2. Would you, if you were in their shoes, go with this designer?

This is a site that this particular designer has made, to give you an example of his work. Magic Wands for Harry Potter wands fans - See our Magic Wands

Any and all input would help.