DHL is notorious for slow delivery, delivering to the wrong address, or totally losing the package with no hope of finding it.
I haven't heard any DHL horror stories for shipping downunder. Its also not slow, so you may have it confused with registered China mail. DHL is very fast, is tracked every step of the way, and takes about 3 days to arrive. I've used DHL with Health Cabin twice with no problems - 3 days from China to NZ, and I could follow the tracking online on the DHL site all the way
through.
There are lots of posts on the forums by people who bought Vamos with DHL shipping and received them from Health Cabin in 3-4 days.
Paying an extra $30 for rural is a bit much - I am not rural so for me the cost is not much different to the slow shipping I get from US vendors for around the same cost. The US vendors can take anywhere from 7 days to 3 weeks. DHL - 3 days!
DHL is not notorious - sorry but you aren't correct here. China registered mail is slow - can take a month.
I'm getting something from a vendor in Indonesia by EMS - its been shipped so will see how long it takes.