I am a Viking dealer so take this with a small grain of salt............however, Viking has the best colors of FG pools available and has been actually doing color longer than anyone else, Viking is heads above everyone else as to options, quality control and innovation and they have great customer service. My guess is that they are also in the best financial shape and that is important because of the long term warranties offered by FG pools. The pool business has been a tough business lately. San Juan is in bankruptcy; little is known about the financial condition of Blue Hawaiian. Viking itself just emerged from bankruptcy on 1/22/10 with a solid net worth, a $30,000,000 line of credit and a host of money people dedicated to their longevity.
That being said, it is MORE important to pick a great installer--screw up on the installation and it doesn't make any difference who built the shell--your problem will be between you and the installer (and in this day and age, make sure your builder isn't on the edge of bankruptcy)'
Because your name is Pool 'Facts', I wanted to clarify your color statement. Viking pools got their color from Compass Pools out of Australia. They clearly were not the first. Also, Compass no longer uses the Crystite that Viking took from them because of its 'issues'. In other words, if Viking's color was so great, why does Compass, who were the color originators, now use something different?
VIKING CRYSTITE COLORS==You may be right about Compass pools.....I am not that familiar with Australia but I do know the USA and FG pools. When we were doing Viking in the late 1990s we were the ONLY one around with color and it was a huge competitive advantage. Now everyone is doing some kind of color although I like Viking's crystites the best for a lot of reasons especially durability as all those crystite pools we put in in the late 1990s (including mine) still look great. I do know that Leisure (I believe an Australian company) has some deep colors that look good in the kitchen but just look like blue paint once a pool is in---there is just not enough variation in the color so that water line stains as well as every scratch shows. Maybe they should knock on the door of Compass, their Australian neighbor, if they have such great colors and see if they can borrow one.