In contrast the BA European 767s, even a few years ago, had been allowed to get into a dreadful state internally, and regulars on the Moscow flight on Flyertalk started a list, by aircraft registration, of all the unresolved cabin issues which plagued those flights, including broken, missing or filthy cabin fittings, many of which should have been standard stores items. The worst was G-BZHC, whose cabin lighting had some longstanding intermittent issue that caused all the lights to flash on and off at random - this aircraft gained the long-running soubriquet of "The Disco", and regulars said their hearts would sink when they saw it on the gate. Now at the time ZC was the newest 767 in the fleet, less than 10 years old. There really is no excuse for such maintenance budget cheeseparing, and to be frank, saying that it's only non-vital components that this is done with, having two completely different maintenance regimes for different components, strains credulity.
You'll be pleased to know WHBM that all of the short haul 767s had an interior upgrade last year and are now actually quite nice. They even have flat screens hanging from the ceiling rather than those flickery old monitors that never used to work!
As for the 747s, some of them are falling to pieces and others are still quite nice. I flew on G-BNLR last week from BKK. Dreadful thing. Hopefully the most dilapidated ones will get the boot soon. Some of the older 747s with New First (Prime) are being retired over the next few months. The new-ish cabins from these aircraft will be used to replace some of the middle-aged 747s that still have old First fitted.
Despite moaning about the interiors, I still love the Queen of the Skies!
Champ