Am a British JAA/FAA flight instructor and would consider myself to be unbiased in the matter. I think the JAA theory is clearly superior, but the JAA flying, especially stick and rudder, is lacking.
You don't get many "proffesionally" trained pilots from the US in Europe. Generally, people that have fallen for some PPL-ATPL, $20000 in six months, nonesense in the adds of Pilot or Flyer go back to Blighty and make an arse out of themselves, understandably devaluing the FAA license
The practical flying and theory I see from the guys that have trained at an airline like Comair or with someone like Flight Safety seems considerably better than what I get from the UK.
However, I would say that when the FAA suck they really suck, but that is an issue of maintaining the training and practical test standards for license issuence in a vast country with a huge aviation industry.
[This message has been edited by cavu (edited 09 June 2001).]