How I selected lulu.com for self-publishing

Once I had made the decision to self publish, the next question was how? Well since you're reading this you know about the internet, and a few google searches later, I identified two possible ways forward. The first was to adopt a traditional approach to publishing - essentially, find a printer I like and get them to print a batch of books, which I then receive, store, and sell. The second was to use a 'print on demand', or POD, approach. The way this works is that you write your book EXACTLY as you want it - title page, copyright page, the lot, and load it onto a website. People who want to buy the book pay for it, and it is then printed on demand - hence the name.
POD has a number of attractions for me. Firstly, I'm very familiar with computers, but not at all familiar with the printing industry, so it was in my comfort zone. Secondly, I don't have much storage at home. Thirdly, I probably don't have the time, energy, or salesman skills to shift a large number of physical copies. Fourthly, I wanted the book to be available in all English-speaking markets, without prohibitive postage costs.
POD does have some disadvantages. Perhaps the most important one is that the price per book will be higher - it won't benefit from the huge economies of scale that can apply for a large print run.
Ok - so I decided on POD. The next thing was to determine what POD company to use. The first one I investigated was Createspace.com - this is now a subsidiary of amazon.com, and therefore worth consideration by anyone. the reason I rejected it is that all distribution is from the USA - I'm based in England, and didn't want to lose the home market because of the aforementioned postage costs. At the time of writing, createspace say they have no plans for their books to be available through amazon.co.uk or other non-US subsidiaries.
So - lulu.com. They proclaim that they are the largest self-publishing company out there, and have a flourishing network of forums. I thought that this would be important since if I hit a problem, I'd like it if someone else had hit it before, and posted the answer. They also offered distribution internationally.