many people order from online. Have you been checking out our local forum lately? (i'm in the same one as you). Vanmle just did that huge group buy...everyones fish came in fine (as far as from the heat). They had a pretty good survival rate..pretty much the same as buying from the lfs. However it did seem like a rather high number of the fish had ich, from all the feedback on the buy...but that wasnt from any store i dont think. Just some wholesaler.
I'd say that if you wree to buy from somewhere like liveaquaria, or marinedepotlive, you should be fine. Both have got pretty good reps, and i do think that liveaquaria has like a 14 day stay alive period that they guarantee...which is more than you can get if you go to aquarium arts or pets inc or something by us.