[lowfreq33]

Eh, that does suck. I've been in a few similar situations. It is hard when you've worked on something you actually care about and it gets handed off to someone else to ruin.

The bottom line is, we're in a service industry, whether we like it or not. I've had several clients go with a mix engineer who cut them a better deal, or was a friend, or maybe even had a more extensive resume. Never with very good results. But no matter what, if you did the job you were paid to do (and I hope this wasn't a favor job or on spec), then you should sleep well at night. Take some consolation in the fact that a bad sounding record is usually blamed on the mix engineer or mastering engineer.