i use http://www.transworldnews.com. they have an All you can Eat deal for $1000 per year, the only restriction is that you can only link to your 1 registered domain (you can create redirect pages, but the press release only sends link juice to one domain). So if you have 1 branded domain to push, it’s great. Most of my releases thru them get indexed on google news.
I will say that i’ve used PRweb a few times this year for the same business/domain as i use TransWorld for and found that the $80 release get better treatment from google than my $200 releases, which is counter to what the Prof has observed.
If you think $80 is a lot, look at PRNewswire and BusinessWire, they’ll start around $400 and go up over $1000.