I have found CrossComm in Durham, NC to be among the best. Sean, their tech lead, really helped us at Reveal Mobile. They are reasonably priced with an impressive client roster (Duke, LG, T-Mobile, etc...). See http://www.crosscomm.net/ and just give them a call at 919-667-9432.

As an engineer who leads a team, I really appreciate challenges from management. That is, challenge the intelligence and creativity of members in tasks that are really hard. The most disheartening thing as an engineer is having to do simple, grudge work. I suspect it is the same for a designer. The best way to implement this is to have a task set with goals, then bonus areas for each task. For example, Task A is to create a website menu and cookie crumb navigation for the web site. Task A bonus is to have it customize itself based on user behavior. Engineers love to be challenged with doing new things that are more complex than the typical build this and do that work. I can help give concrete examples based on the scope of your work and the goals you need to accomplish.