I've been a regular traveller through Norwich since before the days of the tiny AirUK plane posted earlier in the thread (was it Air Anglia?). I'm also a frequent traveller and have been through many small and large airports all over the world.
I'm not a huge fan of the development fee but my earliest memories are check in being near where you exit arrivals now. I also remember the departures lounge having the toilets and offices in the middle of it and the bar and cafe being where the toilets are now. More recently as stated the cafe (which was pretty bad) has been updated to a Costa (which is even worse in terms of quality, vile coffee). Lots of changes have taken place for the better over the years.
I cant say I agree with the thoughts on security as well, in thousands of times they have always been extremely polite, patient and friendly to me. In fact i've never had a negative experience with them. A few times I've been part of a group that required (disabled) assistance for one of our party and they've been so kind and helpful in those times, far more so than the staff at Schiphol. I suspect the issue with people treated badly by them is said people being rude to security. I've never had to wait out in the cold for ages to clear customs. I've never had to wait for more than about 5 minutes for baggage to arrive.
It's not perfect, more destinations would be nice (although with KLM / Skyteam the connection possibilities are fantastic), sometimes I do use Stansted instead but for the catchment area we're lucky to have it.