I'll pop in with my 2 cents. Being someone who was a fan of faunsubs since the late 90s and a fan of digisubs since they started back in the year 2000 and a fansubber since 2002.
My highest respect goes to Anime-Fansubs and Animefactory. The first few and the strongest. 2 groups that have taken pride and released only quality releases and never sunk to speed subbing like today's groups.
Soldats also progressed to quite the quality group in such a short time, late 2001 they started out sort of badly but really managed to pick up some quality staff shortly after their birth.
I also respect AnimeCo highly for releasing shows people normally would've never heard of but were in fact great series, and doing purely quality releases.
I would also like a short mention of the short lived Choco-Fansubs, Hinano was a 1 person fansub team. She did it all and respected her for it. Too bad she sort of dropped it all shortly after Groove Advneture Rave. Even though me and her got into arguments, which were quite amusing and fun. Because her channel seemed like some kind of dictatorship, lol. Oh well, I bet no one remembers her anymore.
Also Anime-Kissaten the true "A-K" because of their quality work with Hakaima Sadamitsu. And for them working on Hunter x Hunter. Their release is quite slow, but still quite quality.
Another deep respect goes to Alphaweltall, former translator of AnimeHaven, Aoi-anime, and 12Kokki Translation Project. It took him those 3 groups to completely sub Juuni Kokki but he did it and I'm proud of him for it and would like to run into him again at some point.
I'd also like to give my respect to SexyCommando-Bu. Who has an excellent and friendly leader. And introduced me into such a crazy series(Sexy Commando Sugoiyo! Masaru-san). And who did sub 6 eps of Ryuki back in 2002. The leader has always been quite helpful. When I need an encoder for a project I can always call him.
An honorable mention to AnimeInc, a good group who I first was introduced with when they started subbing X TV and later subbed some quality series.
ANBU I liked only when they were a very secretive group back when they did Kokoro Toshokan. Back then they had no channel, no credits. They were very good back then. When they went public their egos grew too much.
Then there is Real-Fansubbers, the bastard child of Elite-Fansubs. Run by the famous translator loae666. He was quite the top-notch translator. I really respect how he translated the Crest of the Stars novels and sells the translations at the cost of only the paper and ink used for the translation, and original copy of the novel and the shipping.
BakaMX for their release of Fruits Basket back when it was airing and then when they did secret releases as Furuba Fansubs when it was licensed.
Live-Evil for the only group to actually sub Galaxy Railways, which turned out to be an EXCELLENT series. Never really watched their subs but I know their leader. Heh.
I rather not note Anime-Empire, Aoshi-Fansubs, Solar-Fansubs, Kaizoku-Fansubs, and Seed-Fansubs. As I've worked with those group or been a part of those groups in my days of fansubbing.
Looks like my 2 cents turned into a 100 dollar bill
I'm sorry but my opinion of TV-Nihon is not the same as yours. I actually had my friend who is working his way to translating professionally to look at some of TV-N's recent work and said their translations were, and I quote "They're not bad, but they're not good either." And more clearly stated they were only "ok".