Pokerstars is probably the best site out there. They are so huge that they can compete with all other sites in terms of incentives, such as sign up and frequent player point (FPP). Their FPP prizes are the freakin best out there. You can trade them in to win uber luxury cars like Lamborghini and mercedes! I don't know how long it would take playing the one cent two cent tables that I play at but it would probably be a long time. They have a new feature at Pokerstars that lets you see poker pros playing on their site. I had a blast watching newly acquired Danial Negranau playing $25/50 table against JohnnyBax (one of the top online poker players). You can change the skins of the pokerstars tables now. You get about a dozen different looks. The tournaments and sit n go's are always packed and lots of them. No waiting around for what every game floats your boat.
I am currently playing at Fulltilt. Its similar to pokerstars in terms of bonuses, layouts, tournament structure and looks. The people will chat to you a bit more than pokerstars. What I used to like about Fulltilt is that they used to have poker pros under contract to play so many hours a week with regular players. So a couple years ago, I played in a tourny with Chris (Jesus) Ferguson. That was really cool. But since I deposited in about 2 weeks ago, I haven't seen any pros playing.
I used to play at pokerroom.com and about 2 good points for them is that you don't have to download a program to play. Its all webbased. They also have a full casino so if you get bored of poker, you can play some blackjack, spin the slots, craps, roulette and who knows what else, all for real money!
I also play at PKR.com which is British based site, designed by a video game maker. He said he didn't like the way all the poker sites looked and decided to make his own. This is simply the best looking and sounding poker site out there. They call it a next generation poker site. Everything is in 3D graphics. You design your own player, choosing every minute detail of what he/she looks like. If you ever played recent sports video games where you can create your own character, then you will know what I mean by this. There is a LOT of chatter at this place. When your hole cards are dealt, you can see them for a few seconds, then they go face down. If you want to look that them you have to click and then your character takes a peek. Everyone else at the table will see that action too. Playing PKR feels like you are in a real casino. There isn't a lot of people here, compared to pokerstars or full tilt. I notice that I have to wait a long time to get some sit n go's going. It might be that PKR gets busier during certain European hours and since I live in western Canada, everyone else is long in the bed. Btw, my avatar on the left of this column is my character in PKR. And everyone that knows me says its a very good likeness to what I look like. The worst part of pkr is the huge downloads to get pkr to run for the first time and if you have a slower computer you probably won't be able to play it.
My only other suggestion is to look up bonuses and see what people will give you for dropping money in their sites. One of the most helpfull things I did was sign up for Roy Rounder's newsletter, and then I signed up at a couple places that he suggested, like pokerroom up above, and he gave me a few books on upping your poker game (really really good advice) and a great poker calculator that works for nearly all poker sites (didn't work on pkr but probably cuz of the graphics heavy interface).
BTW, you were talking about your bank roll busting. Chris Ferguson from Fulltilt is currently doing an experiment on how to do proper bankroll management. They say that bankroll management in intregal to any serious poker player's game. I explained it a bit here:
http://thetournamentdirector.net/forums/index.php?topic=835.0