GayFriendly,
One (airport) is never going to keep all of the people happy and all of the time!
BHX was my most convenient airport, having worked at aiports most of my career I hate airports with a vengeance ..... but I loved BHX for it's ease of transitting thru, it's smallness, etc.
You say my statement doesn't rack-up for European flying, you are both right and wrong, you cite Berlin, I had a few business trips to Riga to be made, from BHX it was either KLM or SAS but neither had anywhere near perfect schedules. But ..... I also had several MXP and/or FCO business trips to make, now just check out the fares on a certain swiss dot com website, good fares, excellent service, and quick connections in ZRH, one connection I managed all of 9 minutes in the ZRH terminal and even then because I dragged my heels whilst smoking a very quick cigarette., it does work, it doesn't work, one can't, and never will, serve everybody perfectly!