To those who slag off Heathrow and Gatwick (immigration delays being largely the responsibility of the Govt rather than BAA), I'm curious as to what it is that you really expect.
Nobody seems to want to pay a lot more in airport service charge. Both are very busy airports that are either at or not far off their design capacity. If you're going to compare these 2 airports to competitors, it should be against those which are also serving at least 20 million or more passengers, not against those serving less than 2 million.
Are places like Frankfurt or Barcelona really so wonderful in comparison to LHR and LGW ?