Have to take exception to your dissing of Manfrotto, Arthur. Manfrotto make decent cheap stuff ("decent" bearing in mind how much you are paying, that is), and perfectly workable mainstream products. (Again, not perfect but useful practical tools.) Nothing to rave about, but if you want perfection, you have to spend the big bucks. Fact of life.

In particular though, I want to mention my current birding tripod. It is Manfrotto's top of the line carbon fibre model with a greared head. (Or was at the time I bought it. Whatever the current model is would be similar.) It was hellishly expensive, and it is very, very good. It's quite heavy for a carbon fibre 'pod, but that's a price you pay for solidity. Even carbon fibre needs to be used fairly generously to get a rock-solid platform, especially with a big lens. It has lever-locks (which is one reason I bought it - I don't much like twist locks, too slow, and too fussy about grit). More significant from the weight point of view is the geared head. A decent geared head is heavy, no two ways about it. The main advantage of a geared head (as I see it) is that it is the only sort of head that lets you wind the head up with a heavy lens mounted. Try fitting something like a 600/4 with pro camera onto your head and then raising it an extra 400mm without removing the lens firs! Not easy, and plenty of room for accidents.

As for heads, the only head worth considering for big lenses is a Wimberley. (Or direct equivalent from another maker.) Ball heads just don't cut the mustard. They can't be adjusted precisely enough, and they slip. Don't care what your brand is or how much you spend, it's just not a sensible way to try supporting a long, heavy lens.

For smaller lenses, use whatever you like. I used to have a three-way head, which was firm and precise but a pain in the A to fiddle about adjusting. Very slow. You had to get up at three in the morning to get it adjusted right for the sunrise. Well, almost. I replaced that with a cheapish ball head, which seems to go OK. I used to have a Manfrotto video head. That was excellent in most regards (cost a fair bit and weighed quite a lot though) and coped very well with lenses up to 400/5.6. Faster to use than anything short of a Wimberley. I recommend them. But they aren't strong enough for big lenses.