I am also sad to not have the pleasure of doing business with Laser's Edge. I have almost exclusively ordered from Laser's Edge for about 13 years (including 7 years while living in Japan.) I can recall zero shipping errors and 99% ontime delivery. Customer service was tops and no offshore call center to deal with. The Laser's Edge web site was also a valuable resource and very well maintained. I particularly liked the utility that allowed daily review of new postings as I made most purchase decisions upon title announcement then did a pre-order.
Although I will truly miss Lasers's Edge and their excellent staff and service, I can understand the situation of independent retailers in many product categories. How many independent video, audio, book, photo retailers still exist in today's market. In the case of DVDs, they became a commodity with big box stores and even grocery chains securing tie ins and using big titles as loss leaders. Also, in the past year, price decay time for DVDs has increased to the point that big titles of only three months ago are offered at $10 and even $ 8.
For pre-orders I have switched my backlog of pre-orders over to Amazon Prime. I have used Amazon with good success for audio CDs and books but when a problem does occur I find it difficult to deal with their overseas call center. Amazon is almost the only source for classical CDs and they even have obscure titles. Yes, they do make shipping errors at Amazon. Even if Amazon Prime calls for 2-day shipping, they often send UPS 3-day select or even ground. They do not even approach the excellence provided by Laser's Edge but they provide a broad range of product.
Here're the places I use for all of my DVD needs. I'm also multi-region with a preference for NTSC too. And I prefer HD DVD over Blu-ray even though I'm format neutral. Just that I have my HD DVD player at my residence and the Blu-ray/PS3 is my best mateys. You know what I mean.
I use Amazon, DVDEmpire, and Deepdiscount mostly. Deepdiscount usually has the best price for what I'm looking for, but their free shipping can be slow.
My suggestion is to try at least a couple of places and see which one suits your needs best.
DVD Pacific constantly overcharges me for shipping, so I've stopped using them at all, except for the odd item no one else is carrying.
I'm a big fan of Digital Eyes/DVD Planet, and alternate between them and DDD. Even though they're all part of the same family one will have cheaper prices on some things than the other, and vice versa. The Digital Eyes frequent buyer program works out to an additional 4% discount, and they almost always have the best prices on Criterion discs.