Great artists ship

I thought I would post on here to get some opinions and feedback on my observations. I often see beautiful screenshots of website designs that a given designer has done on their portfolio, and I often will decide to go and see how it came out in html. I would have to say at least 75% of the time, the design is not even being used! 15% of the time it is but it looks nowhere near as good as the screenshot, I believe primarily due to a substitution of attractive fonts from the design to unattractive ones in the final implementation.

So what at the end of the day is the problem? I feel, at the end of the day, a graphic designer can only be judged on the final product. So far, I have not been impressed with many designers abilities to come up with a design that the client who paid for it feels it is worthy of putting up in place of his current design.

I also find many people soliciting for business on here, but when you contact them they don't even reply to you.

I am really struggling on this site...there are so so many people on here, but at the end of the day quality AND good communication are rare commodities from most on here.

Itrader gives reviews but I do not feel they are necessarily accurate. How can I find some good people when everyone is talking a good game?