could not agree with you more, vincent! Graduate school is all about finding the best fit between you as a researcher and research faculty of the school. Of course big names of the universities does reflect lots of good things about the schools but you have to be really careful in finding out the amount of research works going on in your particular field. In my view, once you are into one of the Top 50 schools, it all depends upon the quality of faculty and the research work in the lab you are involved into. Not all big schools have quality research work going on in all fields. So try to find out the best quality fit. All the best!!