Actually if you have long legs it IS the depths of hell!
the seat pitch is 31" both my wife and I have longer legs than that. the one time in Economy we both had bad backs for days afterwards after being cramped in.
You cannot sleep in seats which recline a couple of inches, the food is of a cheap quality, the luggage allowance is rubbish, and so it goes on.
To me its not either or, if you don't do it properly, don't do it at all, and thats all sections of the holiday.
My partner is 6' and had no problems in economy. Granted it wasn't exactly roomy but it far from crippled either of us.
Sleeping on the way out there isn't important for us since it's the daytime and we accept that we will be pretty tired on the return journey and get some sleep when we get home.
The food isn't much different to PE (at least it isn't on BA flights) and we take a few snacks for if we're hungry. We eat a proper meal when we arrive at each destination.
The luggage allowance is
46kg! We don't even bring enough stuff to bother to check bags but if we did, I think somehow between the two of us we'd manage to pack less than
92kg worth of belongings PLUS hand luggage for a two-week vacation
For our Easter trip it would cost over £700 MORE with Virgin to fly PE. Given the complaints you mentioned above, we'd spend the money instead on either upgrading a hotel (£50 more per night for a two week vacation), paying for a massage, extending the holiday by several days, dining at Victoria and Alberts a couple of times and shipping the kitchen sink over there to meet us on arrival
For us, we can't justify spending that kind of money for a meal that will still be average, a little bit extra comfort and more baggage that we probably wouldn't need anyway. For us, it's about
being there, not getting there. Flying economy means we can be there for longer, that we can make the most of it when we're there and more importantly that we can go back twice as often!
(Then again, we have been known the fly the dreaded American Airlines, with whom I have experienced service just as good as, if not better than, BA or VA. Oh and the food is the best I've had in the air too - who knew that 'slumming it' would pay off?
)