Amana is a close second behind Whiteside for me too. Back in the mid '70's, a salesman gave me a new brand of bit to try. He was trying to get local building suppliers to start selling their router bits. Before that, all I knew were things like Craftsman, Porter-Cable, and such. This was some new company in furniture making land part of North Carolina. That bit was a game changer. Since then, I always buy Whiteside as my first choice. They are a pleasure to deal with too.
I used to get custom bits made by them. A few years ago, I sent Todd a mold of a sample of old window sash molding profile that I needed to copy, with my method of six custom router bits. He sent me an email telling me that they no longer make one offs, but only do orders of six each. That was disappointing to hear, but he went on to say that he had sent the mold to another North Carolina company that did make one offs. Still very impressive to deal with.
Whiteside also makes the high end line for Eagle America. I called Whiteside about a bit I wanted, but they didn't have it in their line. The girl on the phone told me that they made one very similar to what I was wanting for Eagle America. Sure enough, it worked fine.