2R2W,
If you don’t personally know any BA pilots to get questions answered, reading threads like this is part of ones due diligence. Unless issues are raised by others an applicant might not know that something was even a problem. A Rumsfeldian unknown unknown.
While the MSL is king in BA, a decision to join and on what terms is a very personal thing depending on your time in life. The decision of a single, twenty something to join will be very different to a married with kids, forty year old who has a short-haul command with a LoCo or is ex-military. The latter probably has low expectations of a long-haul command but is maybe moving for a long-haul FO lifestyle. They may have made a different choice had they known there was a risk of being forced onto short-haul.
Regards