Christinap75, your location is probably the biggest problem. You probably need to sign up with a lot more companies to find everything available in your area. The good news is that you're inland and many of the restaurants there are corporate establishments, so they are shopped. The bad news is that your dining options are more limited since it's a lot fo the same restaurants. It's also a lot of FF...
I would suggest Goodwin and possibly Bestmark for mid-level stuff in your area. Coyle and Customer Impact for more upscale establishments, though those will require some driving. Keep signing up and you may find those 2 or 3 outlet restaurants with smaller companies.
The only way I will eveer take an ACL shop in L.A. is if it's bonused. I think they have pretty unreasonable expectations for their base level shoppers with no fee or limited fee asignments that require an enourmous amount of work. Pictures, manager interactions, low reimbursement, bartender bribes...all of those things are really unappealing to me. Remove the possibility of a fee and ACL goes to the bottom of my list for dining shops in my area. I can eat out 3-4 nights per week for shop fees that are a minimum of $15 using other MSCs, with better reimbursement and less requirements.
...and for sandyf; Good luck on finding the Thai and Indian shops. I had to go to Thailand and India to get paid for eating that cuisine!