I try to judge my fabric on a piece by piece basis. I've gotten brand name fabric from my LQS that I was unhappy with after washing. On the other hand, I recently got a bag of scraps from the Goodwill that were nothing special, remnants from Walmart and Joann fat quarters mostly and I was surprised how much I liked some of the Waverly fabrics, in general they were the ones that include the term "screen print" on the selvedge. The trendier/more juvenile the design however and I wasn't as happy with the fabric.
I have my squabbles with Joann, they are the closest store to me (only a mile away) by far. I don't like their pricing model, but again, some of their fabrics are better than others.
Mostly anymore I buy my fabric at thrift stores and shopping my stash, only buying new fabrics to fill out what I need or when the sale is too good to resist! It's amazing what I find, but I have to be open and willing to collect because it is very unlikely that I will find exactly what I want the first time I go out, but that happens sometimes at the regular stores too.
Typically I'm working in a scrappy style and everything goes into the mix, be it homespun or batik or Concord fabric from 1985 or Moda from 2012...