Home Depot has lots of leverage over their subs and you can't beat their prices.

As Joseph alludes to they are a good source for many items. They most often use the same local fabricators all the kitchen designers use, they just get better pricing. I am not a fan of box stores for many many products but if the fabricator they are using passes the smell test I would have no issues using them. My house has HD RTA cabinets (they were in it when I bought it) and the granite is one of the HD standard stock colors and the fab work on it far exceeds the quality and installation on the cabinets.

Thanks for the advice. Just wanted to get peoples perspective on the quality and installation they carry.

I ended up going with a local fabricator that specializes in Corian for my countertops. They do mostly commercial work. I chose them over Home Depot for the simple reason that they promised a 7 day turnaround and Home Depot said it would probably be closer to four weeks.

Home Depot also has a minimum spend requirement of about 1500. My Corian fabricator is charging me 1400. I only have about 12.5 sqft of countertop (the rest is wood). So my situation was perhaps constrained by the small volume needed.