That Washington Post article is excellent. It's too bad the student undertook it so close after 9/11... it would have probably been much better received, and perhaps even productized, today. I suspect he could tell a lot of large corporations things about their exposure that they didn't know.
On the topic of hosting, you don't say why you're not satisfied with the coasts, so I can't qualify my suggestions. Here are some unordered thoughts, perhaps they will send you the right direction:
1) Without doing a detailed analysis, I'd guess that Dallas is probably the best location to host a server outside of the Pacific/Eastern timezones. There are some very large colo centers (the infomart, http://www.infomartusa.com/ comes to mind) that resell space to large carriers/providers. Many providers peer with each other in these spaces, which is the internet equivalent of being at an intersection. Even if you don't colo at one of these centers ($$$) you're bound to reap the benefits from this, as your traffic will likely end up backhauled to a place like this anyway.
2) If you're talking about a decent amount of capacity (more than a couple rack-U or more than about a T1 of bandwidth) call a couple carriers and ask for maps. Sales often has maps / diagrams that are a little more detailed than the stuff you can find on carrier sites, and they'll generally be happy to give you some suggestions for spaces in the area that are served by their products (i.e. where they terminate).
3) Unless you're solving for a specific problem the variability of individual colo providers generally outweighs the differences in locations. That is to say, you'd be better served by a well run provider in your home city than a bunch of imbeciles 5ms from a PAIX peering point. Don't over-think the physical facility/location aspects.