E.coli strain recommendation, please

[clive.tregaskes from eu.effem.com]

I've just started using TOP10 (came with one of the Invitrogen vectors so 
I thought I'd give it a go) and I've found variable colony size depending 
on the vector.  One plasmid, pCDNA3.1, grows fine, nice big colonies, the 
second which is derived from pBluescript doesn't.  These are barely 
visible after an overnight incubation. 
Haven't tried making plasmid from these- inserts amplify up quite nicely 
by PCR, but may give it a go just to see if they grow slowly in liquid 
culture as well

Clive