Status update.
New server has been picked out. It's in Dallas, Texas. We ended up choosing a dedicated server because it means we can deploy it however we want, including mod servers and other games.
Everyone seems to get decent pings there as well (The server we tested saturday was also in Dallas, so your ping should be similar)
It is however a bit more expensive than before. We've moved to subscription based reserved slots. You can choose how much you want to donate per month, and cancel any time.
http://fireslash.net/~fireslash/reserved_slots.php is the current signup page (I'll make it pretty later).
I'll update the first post as soon as I get the new servers fully deployed.