Ken, thanks for the info. This
Gliga on ebay is the spitting image of my Upton hybrid. It seems like the consensus is that the Gliga's are decent basses for the money. I always wondered where my Upton originated, but when I was talking with Gary Birkhamshaw before buying the bass he was cagey about where the bases came from. I'm not sure why he felt this needed to be a secret, seems like a positive point to me.
Anyway, to Jeff's original question; I've been pleased with my bass and I've gotten good comments from folks who have heard it. I like the sound and I find it easy to play. Part of the reason I went with Upton was the lack of local bass shops and little time to make road trips to bigger cities with any real selection of basses. Locally most of what I could find were 1/2 size basses since the only market is the local orchestra programs. There were a couple of 3/4 used Chinese laminates (not Shens) for a lot more than my budget and the shop had little interest in haggling.
I started out planning to spend $1500 on a Medio Fino laminate and talked myself into a Hawkes laminate at $1800. Then good news on my taxes last year and a little side income pushed me up to the hybrid Medio Fino at $2500. Had I realized that I was going to be in that price range in the beginning I'd probably considered some other options, but at my original budget of $1500 there were not a lot of choices, especially since I needed to get something that was reasonably well set up and playable and that I could get shipped to me. I could have done a lot worse and almost did until I came to my senses.
To be honest this is my first bass so I don't have the kind of experience that Ken or some of the other folks here have. It meets my current needs and I should be able to recover most of my costs if I do decide to trade up at some point.