Mixture
Certainly no rose tinted specs nor minions.
BT do have problems-all big 'phone companies do because they have millions of customers and when things go wrong organisational inertia and lack of enterprise makes them hard to fix.
I can understand your frustration in the circumstances you faced but I could make the comment that your view is impaired by red mist much as you inferred that mine might be rose tinted.
All I meant to point out was that BT are not uniformly rubbish and are a viable choice for a lot of people, I agree that not that many faults are caused by the local loop but it can help with one party dealing with the whole service chain.
And just to be clear I am not carrying any torch for BT but I think you have been unfortunate with your problems with them rather than it representing things overall-if you want really bad service try Telefonica in Spain or FT Orange who charged me for 4 years of internet service without ever providing it or answering any complaints about it either