Thanks for the nice comments.
We're on the North Shore near Covington.
I fired first PB because he moved incredibly slow. Had said he only had two jobs, turned out he had at least 6 going, no one happy. After 8 months and with only panels in place he wouldn't commit to finishing the job in a reasonable timeframe so had to move on. Luckily we were directed to Pools N Stuff in Slidell who were willing to come into the partially finished job. Ultimately they did a great job.
The first (and fired) PB had actually done some very nice pools in the area, which is why we went with him. I think he simply got overextended. He's the one who did the custom concrete steps and bench. They're simply formed up wedding cake steps and a bench in the deep end (near spa). The liner had these included in the original specs and were included in the blueprint. Only problem is his form was not quite right so we have some slight wrinkle at the edge of one of the steps. The new PB's had really never seen this before but I like this much better than the pre-fab moulded pieces that I've seen on other liner pools.