I subscribed to Pilot from 1978, bought two aeroplanes through the small ads and gave up buying it when Nick Bloom took over, I just found there wasn't room in my reading for his ego. I always enjoyed anything by Bob Grimstead, but found super pilot Blooms articles too full of him and not enough about flying, in fact one instructor I know who loaned an aircraft to Pilot for a test said he didn't recognise the flight Bloom wrote about!
Some of the best ever articles were by Brian Lecomber, who really should pick up his typewriter again, and all of the tests by Branson. Stephen Wilkinson's letter from America was superb as was his series on building a Falco (he is sometimes found on PPRUNE as StepWilk) Bernard Chabbert's letter from france was a great example of true love of aviation, and even Peter Underhill who I had many a personal run in with and who in daily life I shared a mutual contempt with wrote passionate and fascinating articles.
Pilot also had useful technical items in the James Allen days, articles on how VOR, ADF and DME worked explained them to me far better than any text book and made understanding them for ATPL exams far easier.
These days if I buy a GA mag its' flyer, and the LAA mag arrives and is devoured with great pleasure.
Shame about Pilot, it was the first and for a long time the best, now its' a bit of a sad old dear with too much make-up and too many memories of past conquests.
SND