Sphera VDS technology (Web Hosting) Are the advantages significant?

We were thinking of hosting our sites with Jumpline.com because of their VDS technology. Is it as a big a deal as they make out?

Does it affect an 'average' person - who doesn't do anything too technical - whether their site is hosted on a Virtual Dedicated Server or a normal shared server?

I can't link to the relevant page at Jumpline, but here's some blurbs from their site:

"Choose Jumpline.com and immediately realize the benefits of having your websites hosted on Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) technology.

From the flexibility to the security, VDS hosting has surpassed the standards of old 'virtual hosting' solutions. Whether you are new to web hosting or an experienced webmaster, a Jumpline.com Virtual Dedicated Server will provide all of the tools and features necessary for you to succeed now and well into the future.

...

To completely understand what VDS Technology is, you must first understand the hosting technologies that the majority of our competitors use. Our competitors choose to use a "Virtual Hosting" technology; which essentially is the hosting of multiple websites on a single machine that uses the same server software to run each and every website. Websites under a “Virtual Hosting” environment utilize the same web server, mail server, and are located in the same file directory with all other websites. There are security vulnerabilities under this environment that would allow a single compromise to affect the performance and security of the entire machine. “Virtual Hosting” environments also restrict website owner’s access to the server which doesn’t allow for any installs of custom applications.

What is VDS Technology?

Virtual Dedicated Server (VDS) Technology fundamentally gives you your own UNIX environment. “VDS Hosting” allows each website to operate independently from all other websites on the same physical machine. Within a physical machine, Virtual Dedicated Servers have their own server software that runs inside an isolated file directory and provides autonomy for each website. Security within a VDS environment is unparalleled to that of the “Virtual Hosting” environment. Any compromise to a VDS would only affect that VDS on the physical machine and not any other VDS that resides on that server. VDS website owners have full control of the environment with administrative privileges and may install additional applications along with creating competitor style “Virtual Hosting” accounts contained by your VDS."

Useful image at jumpline.com/images/vdsTable_2.gif

Baring in mind that I won't be doing anything remarkably complex and the only scripts I'll be installing are Amazon web services, PHPAdsNews etc. does it really matter if I have all that functionality?

Will the server be faster? Will it be better in terms of the search engines because, from what I understand, VDS is more like dedicated hosting than shared hosting and so there will be less chances of being in a 'bad neighborhood' etc.?

Finally, how good are Jumpline.com in general? Support etc.

Thanks