The funny thing about LCC's is that unless you find a real one off special their normal fares are not that great.When you add on the extras that you don't pay for on a legacy airline you probably would not bother.
The amount of inconvienience that some people will go through because they think they are saving $50 is amazing.
The LCC's understand this and take advantage of the fact that most people take the lazy way out and not do any research.
A friend of mine did look around and for not much more money than the Geoffstar price got a holiday on a legacy airline with a 3 day stop over in Singapore on the way up including a good hotel.The only draw back is that they go via Singapore on the way home and transit but this is a small price to pay for what they are getting.
It pays to look around and do some research.
With the media stories I think it is the individual airlines with their favourite journo's putting out stories to try and dent the image of their rivals.The same sort of things that political parties do with their favoured journo's.