I really liked the business class upper deck on the 747 - it gave a certain illusion of exclusiveness. And the big bins next to the windows meant you could keep your stuff immediately handy, even when the seat belt sign was on. I never noticed it was particularly noisy (although it was quite noticeable how quiet the upper deck was on a recent A380 trip
). The view out the upper deck windows was a bit compromised, but I still managed to view some pretty spectacular scenery out of those windows (the snow covered mountains of Northwest Alaska on a sunny, clear day were simply breathtaking).