You're in the center of American airsoft, man!
Kapowwe is decent, but airsoftgi.com is probably your best bet. Great service, prices, and selection. And any order over $100 gets free shipping
Might not matter, though, as it's in the SoCal area IIRC. I think AEX (Airsoft Extreme) has a store around there as well.
JG's in general are decent, their G36 supposed to be especially good. If you're into AK's, DBoys (Kalash) and CYMA make some exceptional pieces as well (the DBoys are mostly steel, part zinc alloys, and I believe the CYMA's are all steel). Both the DBoys and recent CYMA's are clones of the VFC AK series, which are extremely accurate in dimensions and construction, to the point where you can use pretty much all real steel non-receiver parts with little or no modification.
Keep in mind that most rifles under ~$250 are generally clones. They're copies (sometimes not exact, which can really screw you up) of guns designed and produced in Japan or Taiwan (usually by Tokyo Marui), and then manufactured with cheaper materials and lower QC in China. There are obvious problems that arise here... sometimes you can get lucky and end up with a really nice, solid shooter, but other times you can get the same model from the same factory and have constant problems with it.
Tokyo Marui, LCT, VFC Tanaka, Maruzen, ICS, Western Arms, and others are all higher quality pieces from Japan and Taiwan. JG, Dboys, AGM, and CYMA are all clones with acceptable quality, but again there's a considerable lemon rate. There's also a large amount of companies (such as Well) that you don't want to touch with a 10-foot pole.
As far as gear goes I'd find a Surplus store in your area. Cheap military grade equipment- you won't get the newest MOLLE PC and Multicam or whatever, but an ALICE harness and US woodland is more than good enough.
Contrary to 1Plus's advice, I wouldn't even look at customer reviews on retail sites, they're generally worthless. You can check out the reviews on websites such as arniesairsoft.co.uk though.
