I reckon I fly through MAN more than most of the fanboys/moaners on here. Normally depart on a Monday and return on a Thursday.
It certainly helps if you know what you're doing. Get your stuff ready, and make sure you remove everything electrical (all dodgy looking cables etc.). Otherwise, your stuff will end up on the wrong side of the conveyer and you'll be stuck behind 10 people who don't realise a bottle of water is classed as a liquid.
If I leave Urmston at 11:30am, I'm generally in the T3 Escape lounge by about midday.
Similarly, home to T1 lounge is around 30 minutes.
On the return (normally T1), it's sometimes a bit busy, but I've never had to wait more than 30 minutes. Although I originally moaned about the e-gates, they do seem to have speeded things up a lot.
Regular flyers just want to get to the airport, get on their flight and bugger off. Most of us will be happy enough with the MAN experience. The once or twice a year flyers may think a bit differently, but really, who cares about them?
My usual other airport is AMS. I've had some *really* bad experiences there, even with a Privium card.