Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

I am bringing our PR inhouse (like I have done 2 times before in the 24 year history of our company (which is a holding company for financial, entertainment and travel businesses). In the old days, we always purchased bacons and used media map also (but the costs were not great). Now, when we contacted Bacons to get their premium contact module with international and consumer we are looking at almost 8k per year for a single user license. Sure, one good hit more than pays for this but... seems pretty steam when

1. MediaAtlas and now BurrellesLuce (as of a week ago) claim to offer nearly the same list building capacities for way less than 25% of that price.

I hate to be ripped off.

Maybe Bacons is just so much better that it is worth 4 times the price. Maybe Bacons will end up having to price compete (in which case I wait a short while).

In short... what should we do. Bite the bullet or not. I know that our former publicist (who remains a close friend and will be helping us on bigger projects) pays less than 3.5K for the same product Bacons wants to charge me 8K for.

Surely, all of you professionals must know what the best way to go is.

Finally... where is the best... perfect... place to place an ad for a solid experienced publicist willing to come in house at a little company?????

Thanks