I'd say be careful about how you choose your PhD. If you ask
high profile people directly you could be lucky and end up working in an excellent lab with some brilliant people.

Alternatively it could mean the person who takes you on squeezes you into their lab in a position that hasn't been funded, planned or resourced. Getting into a properly funded and organised PhD position seems to be the smart way to go.

cont
I realised that a PhD is really up to yourself, after reading Pugh's "How to get a PhD"(?). I often get demoralised and think I'm a disappointment to my supervisor (he obviously had faith in me to take me on with so little experience). Plus I compare myself to others - eg my supervisor's previous phd student (10yrs ago incidentally!), literally a demi-god superhero (seriously, he's actually an astronaut and a brain surgeon). Today I reached a new low: came across my own brother's thesis online, of a standard I can't even imagine achieving.
Endgame: I know it's not up to my supervisor to do the work. It's my PhD. What I learn, I learn through working it out for myself. I know that's not what happens in all labs, but maybe I'll learn a lot more about self-reliance, project management and perseverence this way. I genuinely think that's what an 'apprenticeship in research' is about. I manage to convince myself of that occasionally!

Hi,
my first post! Agree with you shani about supervision. Initially I blamed my PhD strife on my supervisor and his 'distanced' approach. I'm v junior with no experience in research before beginning 18mnths ago. I said candidly at the start: "I don't know how to go about doing a PhD". His advice was "well you'll spend the first while doing some quiet reading"...
He hasn't set a single deadline in the past 18mnths, so I've learned lots about project management, writing grant proposals, contacting other experts etc. Unfortunately, there is no 'research group'. I'm the only one in my area in a small research centre. When I ask him to read my drafts there tends to be *somewhat* of a delay before he gets back to me (the record so far being 3 months!), and then it's all about grammar and phrasing (and most irritating of all telling me a word didn't exist which I know definitely does exist - a stats term!). [Curiously, he's improved in the last 2mnths, though].