Well basically besides the face that they have super low prices.. they are also the biggest hosting provider and have a great chat service which is completely free... Also thier shared servers are pretty powerful to.. i remember when my site was getting 5000 Uniques daily it could still handle it pretty well..
If you ask me, I have seen some positive and also negative reviews about them - this make me think that they have doubtful reputation.
Hostgator is not cheapest even with their coupon code. A coupon could give you only temporary solution and you will have to pay their full price in a next period you decide to continue with them. Apart from that I think HostGator itself is an excellent choice and worthwhile whether they have coupon or not. They are stable and much less annoying in resources limitation compared to others shared hosting company.
I hosted my site for one month but my site was constantly down with the same excuse, so I left. Just because there one of the biggest does not men that they are the best.
I use them for some of my sites and have not had any issue with them so far. The prices may not be the best but they're acceptable for shared servers and their support is acceptable. Now for dedicated servers there are better providers but for my VPS they get my vote.
I am not sure about your point, that they have doubtful reputation, maybe it is simply like with everything over the Internet that you can find good and also bad reviews about anything in the world, no matter what it is! I like Hostgator, and if I would have to choose hosting right now, I would choose them again, because money saving is not worth it. Unfortunately, I did get that only after trying some cheaper hosting. So from me just the best reviews to Hostgator, at least until now!
A server the size of a 486 can still handle 10,000 views a day. Hostgator is shit, they mass host they fill up their servers to the brim to save on costs. Security wise - They are on top of things, but in history they have not. Would you pay a cheap mechanic or a premium mechanic to do your work? A cheap mechanic will be in a rush and may forget some bolts, however a premium mechanic will take time and may not forget as many bolts as the cheaper mechanic - Are you willing to spend a little amount on the service which hosts your website?
I recently started using HostGator. Works good for me, at this moment I do not have much traffic though so I can't comment on the load. Other than I felt it was easy for me to host multiple websites. And so far, their chat responses are quick and accurate.