Having observed BA at Manchester for many years, I can sympathise with the regional perspective. At one time BA flew to JFK / YYZ / YMX / HKG / BGI / ISB/ MCO / LAX (although not all at the same time!) Now there is just the JFK outside Europe. It would be dearly wonderful to see BA with a long-haul fleet at MAN, as LH does at MUC in addition to FRA. I have come round to believing the reasoned opinions from those London-based contributors in this thread however - the problem for BA is the cost of setting up a regional base and running it on the inevitably lower yields that would generate. The socio-economics of the UK (which is another topic!) mean that the bulk of the high-yield fliers originate in the South-East. Having said that - it is evident that BMi 's fledgling long-haul operation based at MAN is gathering momentum, using the Star Alliance code-shares to stimulate and integrate traffic from a wider catchment. As they add routes and aircraft, the fixed costs get spread across a larger revenue stream - increasing profitablility and acheiving a critical-mass. Hopefully they will prove that a British carrier can run a profitable long-haul hub at MAN. The only other possible contender, Virgin, don't seem to be interested.
Long-haul has a good future at MAN, and maybe to a lesser extent at BHX and GLA. It will be led by overseas carriers, using the UK regions as spokes to their hub(s), and also BMi at MAN. May they live long and prosper. BA will continue to run successfully out of London, but may see it's share of the regional long-haul market diminish as alternatives to connecting at LHR develop. BA's European and UK network at MAN looks fairly healthy to me, although it's a rather fragmented operation made up of various subsidiaries. They have got the cost-base down. I certainly choose BA over the locos if they have a direct from MAN, and Terminal 3 is a much nicer, calmer place to leave from!