I love my API (it's a bowhunter though) but I have nothing bad to say about it. Been using it for 5 years now and it's held up to everything I've asked out of it. I have heard a lot of good things about summit though. I've used one of their stands but it was an old old model which turned me away from their product when I was looking for a climber. But their models have changed a bit since then. My next climber just might be a Summit backpacker.....it looks very portable which is what I like with climbers.

EDIT: If you're looking to buy really soon, I just got a flier in the mail from BPS and a lot of their stands are $30-40 off. Keep that in mind!

Good to see another Illini fan on here! haha I have one more semester to go up there!