I have owned a lot of tripods. Gitzo in the olde days made the best tripods on the planet which last forever so you can find them on Ebay from time to time. The Gitzo Tele Studex Giant is a keeper, way better than just about all other tripods in current manufacture. But it is not featherweight.
In the insanity of attempting to make weightless cameras in our oddly softening world, tripod manufacture is at an all time low point, most efforts can be considered "dilettante."
Currently Manfrotto, at the $500 range for legs only, makes "coffee nervous" tripods which just the camera shutter will send into image wrecking motion. I have one, and it what a joke it is for supertelephoto work. If you must suffer with Manfrotto, keep your shutter speeds high, but then, why not just use a good monopod or handhold. In my studio, I handhold when my big Gitzo is on rental. The Manfrotto also does NOT go low.
Current Gitzo carbon fiber tripods are pretty good (the bigger ones.) Most things Sachtler are good to great, and they have DSLR models, but they are a bit more bent on video.
I plan to put Really Right Stuff to the test, but their largest tripods are quite small by professional standards, particularly in maximum height. Still, for purposes of less demanding general shooting, I have read some good reviews. They are worth checking out. I hope.
For example, concerning the Gitzo Tele Studex Giant: I often raise the tripod to say, six or seven feet in the air (it goes several FEET higher) and load it with about 150 pounds of movie gear. Like a big jib arm and a once upon a time $800,000 movie camera which is not a good thing to break. No big deal. And solid as a rock. No coffee nerves. No twist. No bad habits. Too bad such excellence in manufacture does not exist today.
Funny thing, our family used to own Arkay Corporation, which, apart from the processing gear I had at my commercial lab years ago, also offered camera stands for the studio. I have decided to add one to my studio for its instant high to low shooting capability and rock solid functionality.
If you need such a thing, they sell them at B&H today:
http://tinyurl.com/ahh6jas