Big Web Projects
It is relatively easy to find a web consultant. Finding a good web consultant, one that is professional and honest, is a little harder. But if you are plugged in, and if you are not a headhunter (good developers are allergic to job placement firms), you likely can find talent.
Finding very experienced talent that has built durable, large-scale system is even harder. People like that, who have shipped actual code, and learned lessons, are valuable at nearly any price.
There is a step beyond this, though. Some projects are too big for one person and require a team. Finding someone with a network of such experienced talent, who knows how to guide a customer through the balance of wish versus reality, and can manage a distributed team to delivery and ongoing support...that also is deeply valuable.
Agendaless Consulting has this experience. We wrote Pyramid, so we are pretty good at Pyramid development. We also, though, know consulting.