Making my own as well, following various recipes that are similar to suginami's. I usually leave out the dairy (yogurt or milk), and substitute ice. Some tips I've found useful:

- Agree on the flaxseed meal. You can get it cheap from Amazon - it's a large quantity, but keeps well.

- Adding just a touch of good cinnamon makes any fruit smoothie come alive. Penzey's has the best stuff - nothing matches their Extra Fancy Vietnamese Cassia Cinnamon. There's a huge difference between this stuff and the supermarket junk.

- And finally, if you really get into it...you've gotta get a good blender. The only way to get smoothies silky-smooth like the chain places, is by investing some bucks. Just like my espresso snobbery, I justify the expense by doing the math...a good blender will pay for itself over the course of 6 months or so, if you are a regular customer at one of the smoothie chain joints. I picked up a Vita-Mix Vita-Prep 3, but there are many out there that will do the job well.