I feel your pain, I really do. It's so bad up here that no one wants to even do mechanical on the older cars. Forget bodywork, you have to beg to get a piece of rust fixed.
However, if you tried shops that deal with the dealer, you were shopping on Rodeo Drive for used shoes
The small-town suggestion is very good but (at least around here) the greed in the auto body sector has gone rural too. You may find many of them are addicted to insurance work only, as well (or you may have to drive further afield than you imagine).
You could also take a drive into the diry industrial-park section of town and look for nondescript shops off the beaten path. Some of them will for sure just be the low-flyers who do zip-up jobs for low-end car dealers, but from time to time you hit some old timer who's been hidden away there for 30 years or whatever and survives on word of mouth.
Have you asked the actual bodyshop techs at your shop for recommendations?