Nothing much has changed since the threads linked to below, but I'll try and answer some of your points:
Commuting: people commute froma good deal further away than Manchester. I think Cape Town is the furthest anyone commutes from. It's a bit of a pain, but it can be done.
The bond is 20k for, I think, three years. Pay starts at approximately 41k basic (incremented), plus 7.5k productivity pay plus around 6k allowances. Loss of licence (90k), Permanent Health Insurance (like critical illness cover), private medical cover, death in service benefit, and a defined contribution pension scheme (15% from the company so long as you cointribute a minimum of 6%) are all included. Take home pay will depend on how much you put into your pension, but you should start at around 2500 quid.
Time to command is difficult to assess. For new joiners I would anticipate somewhere around 8-10 years. It's unlikely to be more, and it could be less, depending on how long the airline continues to expand. The orders envisaged now will not quite soak up all the current FOs.
Long haul flying has been debated at length elsewhere in this forum; I'm not going to attempt to reiterate it all here! You do get to see mates from time to time, but expansion will make that less and less so.
Links:
Virgin Commands
Virgin Pay
BA vs Virgin
Virgin Recruiting
Virgin Atlantic Orders for 26 A340-600s
Hope this helps!