You have three whinges and are subject to differing considerations
1
Travelling with Thomson to Menorca, having checked in online, he and his girlfriend waited 45 minutes in the bag drop queue, along with hundreds of other unfortunates. the desk for airport check-in was deserted !!
Recent conditioning by the mainly flexible fare operators mentality and Thomas is not one. If you have baggage you might as well check in and collect boarding card from a human! - Thomas don't charge extra and it doesn't add/save any significant time !
Did they even approach the check in desk to see if they would take the luggage off them ?
Not really the Airports problem !
2
Having dumped his luggage, the next hurdle was security. Again a horrendous queue and upon reaching the front was confronted by shrieking staff, hurling aggressive instructions such as "don't take a tray", despite the airport signage requesting you to "take a tray".
Another 40 minutes of his life wasted, he finally reached the departure gate with just 20 minutes to spare.
This is a combination of Home Office dictate on security and Airport operator problems in actioning it with due reference to available logistics and infrastructure.
Especially at and around peak traffic flows.
Again this is compounded by the modern flexible fares business model such that more baggage is being hand carried than ever to save a few bucks !
Right now i am of the opinion that if the CAA/JAA and government were to ban cabin carry on beyond a hand bag/ very small over night bag these security queues could be substantially reduced.
A very relaxing week spent in Son Bou, but any benefits of the holiday destroyed by having to wait for nearly an hour to clear immigration on arrival at Manchester and that's as a British passport holder !!
The actions of UK Borders are politically motivated at the highest level with un acceptable and direct interference in day to day operations.
It is un-acceptable and un-necessary to inspect every bl**DY UK/EEA passport/ID card however thats what the UK government wants and believes is in the national security interest (Political and xenophobic b*llo*ks!)
Again not the airport operators fault.You can be absolutely sure MAG and their retail tenants would far sooner see the foot fall in those cafes bars restaurants and partaking in the retail experience than pushing/not pushing a plastic tray or sorting out an even more pointless plastic bag and having 250mil aftershave bottles confiscated !