Do you want a single stage or a two stage? I don't know much about single stages, but everybody says Toro is the best, and they have plenty of dealers around.
Two stage blowers:
The best is Honda, but they are ridiculously expensive...north of 2 grand!
Next best is Ariens, Simplicity and Toro. Ariens are sold at Home Depot and Lawn&Leisure in Sterling.
Simplicity has no nearby dealers but they make the blowers that John Deere dealers sell. Excellent machines.
Stay away from any of the MTD brands: Yard Machines, Troy-Bilt, Murray, Sears Craftman. Pure shit.
I have a 32 inch Ariens Deluxe Platinum two-stage with the 13 hp Subaru-Robin engine...an amazing machine that made short work of the recent big snow. It even ground up and spit out the wall of nasty snow that the plows push into the end of your driveway. It throws the stuff about 50 feet in any direction you point the chute. Briggs&Stratton Snow Series engines are Ok, but don't buy any machine with a Tecumseh engine...they're out of business.
You are not going to find much of a selection around here for the big machines....I bought mine online. I am mechanically inclined so I didn't care about dealer support...I can handle it.
Here are two good sites for OPE:
http://www.abbysguide.com/ope/discussions/
http://www.opeonthenet.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=f0346fb4c7cd8f063ab9ab85c8bba8e9