The North Terminal at LGW used to be really nice, you could see all the shops you might want to visit (or ignore) from the middle of the departure lounge, where there was abundant seating in relaxing surroundings - I miss the old centrepieces that were the cone-shaped fountains around which helical ramps would take you down to the departure gates.
After BAA sold it off the centrepieces were concreted over to make way for a small number of seats whilst the rest of the lounge has turned into an ugly and archaic shopping mall which you are forced to walk through regardless as it's the only path to the boarding gates now. Asides from there being a climate control problem, there also seemed to be a big fruit fly infestation problem in some of the upstairs food outlets when I was travelling through there back in February... hope they've sorted those out by now!