Having been in the same position as Neo, I must agree entirely with all he says- Brits was good until Burnell took over, then it all went downhill. I also got voluntary redundancy, although the ******s attempted to cheat me out of a sizeable portion of it which I did eventually get paid after lots of shouting!
It was a very unhappy outfit for years after that, lots of compulsory postings etc, but is getting better now. However it must be said that any airline that gets 160 volunteers to leave at a time when BA were not hiring has definitely upset a few of its employees!
My contemporaries in BAL are just getting commands next month after nearly 15 years in th RHS ( congrats to all BTW ) whereas I got mine after 5 yrs at the spotty M, and I stayed based where I wanted to be throughout. It was a difficult decision to leave BAL but with hindsight I'm very glad I did.
As to which company is the best now, that is hard to say unless you have a particularly reliable crystal ball! The best thing you can do is ask people who work there already, preferably over a few beers. Opinions seem to start out rosy but you'll probably get more balanced views after pint 3 or 4!
There will always be things you'd like better, or just different, the most important consideration is if you can put up with the aspects you don't like, you'll be OK in the long run.