Welcome, Tripp,
Question would be "What do you need?"
If the Midlands do what you need them to do, then don't be concerned what others think about them. Midland makes decent radios for this market, and I wouldn't consider them "cheap".
Usually the "cheap" is attached to - "…Chinese radio" around here. Usually referring to the very low end Chinese radios you can find on e-Bay and Amazon for $15.00.
If you are looking for more, then as Mark said,
There are some commercial UHF radios that have the FCC part 95A certifications necessary to be fully legal to use on GMRS. They'll give you more capability, more RF output power, better receivers, more options, etc.
The drawback to those is that you cannot -legally- use them on the FRS only frequencies.
But, back when I was active on GMRS, I owned a mix of Icom, Kenwood and Motorola UHF radios.
Many of the commercial/professional UHF hand held radios will run closer to 4 or 5 watts.
-However, don't get hung up on RF output power. Changing from 2 watts to 4 watts does NOT double the range.-
The big benefit to the commercial radios is that you can change the antennas out, or even add an external antenna. That will have a bigger impact on performance than just increasing RF power.
Also…
You can use mobile radios. Using a mobile radio allows you to connect the power directly to the vehicle battery, and most importantly, get the antenna OUTSIDE the vehicle. A decent mobile radios with a properly installed external antenna will give you a big improvement in performance. The louder audio and larger speakers make a big difference, too.
I ran Icom 35 watt mobiles for years with a permanent mount 1/4 wave UHF antenna on the roof of my truck. In open areas, I could easily communicate 15 miles or more between vehicles.
In addition to all this, you can program them for a lot more features than the consumer grade stuff. If you have any GMRS repeaters in your area, you can contact the repeater owner and see if the repeater is "open" to other licensed users. A well situated repeater can improve your coverage drastically.