From a passenger perspective, having flown EK many times, I found the experience worse each time. I hope I will never have to travel EK, or go to DXB, again.
My first trips were to/from DXB, thus there was no transit. I stayed with friends, privileged white ex-pats, who lived a life of idle luxury, most of the time in an alcohol induced haze in air conditioned sterile boxes, only going out in their American air conditioned SUV's to go to ex-pat bars to mix with similar people. Horrible. But I thought it was a good airline.
On subsequent trips I transited DXB - several times, and it's a hellhole of an airport, even when the transfer is EK-EK. The airline has become the victim of its own success and its hub is its Achilles heel.
As for the nasty side of Dubai, I could go on about this for hours, but it is a gaudy kitsch monument to depravity, greed, and excesses, built on slave labour. Double standards abound, morals are sacrificed on the altar of money. The sooner the place sees its backside the better.