I'm keeping my fingers crossed that whatever I need done can be accomplished in less than a year, since I already had nearly 2 years of braces as a pre-teen. But it is definitely important to me that the office staff is good, that the orthodontist is one I'm happy with, and that the general procedures (etc.) work for me. Even if it's relatively quick, for orthodontics, it's still going to be hard to change my mind once things get started, so I'm trying to consider everything that will matter down the road now. It's why I was pretty sure it wasn't rude to schedule consultations with both. It does help that I've done the braces thing before, and was old enough that I have a reasonably good idea of how this process works.
So far, the two offices are pretty comparable in terms of how quickly they could see me, what hours they are open (and had appointments available), and how competent the person answering the phone sounded. So I'll see how the appointments themselves go.