Hi Betty Girl
The unease you mention (by the way, I empathise with you, been there done that and it ain't nice) is exactly what I am talking about, because some pax will notice it and others will not - also, some crews and pax 'click' better than other combinations and that's life.
If you speak with a number of frequent travellers, you will find that there is a perception (from quite a number) that BA is not as good an airline as it was in the past, perhaps due to a lot of the product cutbacks, particularly on the short haul business product.
Others swear by BA and some say 'over my dead body', but every airline generates such strong opinions.
I've only flown a couple of BA flights this year, one short haul in economy (50 mins) and a nearly 4 hour sector in business.
It would be difficult to think of how the short flight could be improved, as it was excellently delivered, but the business trip was awful , with inattentive crew who seemed to be talking to colleagues travelling as pax for much of the time. There was a 2 hour gap between the dinner service and the next drinks round (not even water in between) on an aircraft that looked as if it should have been refurbished many years ago.
From such a small sample of flights, it is difficult to determine whether this 50/50 experience is typical, but that was my 2010 experience.
I'm just about to book a return business ticket to South Africa for next month and with BA unrest and BAA unrest, unfortunately I will not be using your airline for this one, even though the pricing is competitive, I'll pay about 10% more for another carrier.
There's a real world out there and the union and management need to recognize this, sort things out and get back to fighting the competition, not each other.
I do regret that decent hard working folks like you are caught in the middle, you deserve better.