Good advice by @Renegade above re finding a good shop. Beyond that, after you eliminate the ones that don’t work on Hondas, or are too far away, etc, interview the rest and ask them some simple questions like “what is your hourly labor rate”, “do you have the Honda factory scan tool”, “do you subscribe to the Honda service data”, “do you keep a file off all the work you’ve done on my car”, etc. You don’t need to get a perfect answer on those, but you should come away feeling they have a lot of experience and success working on Honda’s. Once you decide on a particular shop, schedule a general inspection, but first let them know who recommended you to them; they’ll take an hour and go over your car top to bottom looking for signs of upcoming problems, inventory the scheduled maintenance situation, and provide you suggestions on what the high priority items that need to be done now, and which can be deferred. It will cost you $100 or so for that, but money well spent imo. Plus you get off on a good foot with the shop, they’ll have started a file and can consult that, and when your Honda does need a repair they’ll have a good base to start the diagnosis.
One other thing, while you suggest you’ve felt cheated in the past, cheating customers by a shop isn’t a common thing reported here. When the customer isn’t satisfied, it’s usually a combination of poor communication skills by the shop and impossible expectations by the customer. Cars these days are very complicated. The owner can’t expect the shop will be able to fix the problem on the first go-a-round. It’s an iterative process in many cases. But you can expect them to keep you informed of the progress, come up with work-a-rounds in the meantime, and most important, to continue to work on the problem until you are satisfied with the results.
A faulty DLC could potentially cause misfires. That’s the electronic communication hub the engine computer uses to gather and process sensor information, and it needs that info to fire the spark plugs, inject the fuel, and run the engine correctly.
Perhaps, but they wouldn’t give that to the customer usually, they’d keep that for their expense records. They also might consider the price they pay and the vendor they use to be confidential information. You have the right to ask the give you the removed part if you want, but do that in advance, not when you come back to pick up the car as they might have already thrown it away by then.