Re root access: I tried uploading to the root and was denied permission.

I will talk to them about it.

I guess I'm out-of-luck without it. Maybe that means a more expensive hosting service.

I may have been wrong about the root access, if your ISP supports tomcat hosting then it will already be installed, you will just have to find out how to use it. If the service did not advertise the fact that it supported tomcat, then in my experience it probably doesnt, most ISP's support PHP but not Java.

The best hosting for this stuff Ive seen is using a linux virtual machine, basicly a mini server with root access and your own IP address. Using virtual hosting you can support many domains on it, so it is pretty good value. I use one of these at a cost of £15 (uk) per month, but you will need to learn Linux, which I found a real pain.

Failing that there are cheaper tomcat services available, but I think they use virtual hosting as you cannot have more than one domain, only sub domains.