This business of declining a job offer to stay in the hold pool I find very strange. At best you could drop out of the pool and at worst you wont be offered again. It's a chance few could risk taking if the job was really of interest to them in the first place. Another reason not to decline is that with hundreds of new recruits coming through the system continuously that puts you well down the seniority list delaying your prospects of promotion and transfers even further.
highfive, are you already employed by a LOCO or are you just repeating what you've heard? I appreciate it is all subjective and some bases are more popular for a variety of reasons: some personal and some operational but in all the years I've worked for easyJet I have never felt that I have been treated, 'like commodities, are impersonal and with contempt'. You work hard but the rewards are there. By the sound of your post it is definately not the place for you.
Have some of you thought that this doom and gloom could be to deter you and make other's chances more likely? Or by reducing the interest or number of applications they feel the offer may improve? You pay the price and take your chance. If you get the offer and choose to take it I don't think you'll be disappointed. Very few airlines are as stable as easyJet if security of employment is what you're looking for.