With respect to LHR, you have to figure that considerably less than 1% of passengers transiting through it on any one day get the benefit of the UC experience. However good this might be, it won't impact any survey. They're interviewing everyone with a half year attendance in architecture school today on how to build airports, and the most consistent theme is 'high ceilings and natural light do the trick, together with good directions'.
What VS have done for their key passengers is build that into the key stages of the airport experience at Heathrow (check-in and clubhouse) and worked to minimize any time needed to be spent inbetween. Which is smart, and a lot cheaper than building your own terminal. But that doesn't change the fact that old Heathrow is low (or perceived to be low) ceilings, cadaveric neon light, being boxed in, changing terminals through underground corridors that can barely accomodate four across, and so on.
I'm at the point where I'll walk outside from T3 to T2 or T1 when I have to change there, unless the weather is really bad.
I do agree with Jacki, the test of an airport is how seamlessly it can blend long haul and short haul traffic together. SIN doesn't have short haul traffic to compete with the major european or US hubs. The traffic movement isn't even top 30, so the sample space of folks who get surveyed about that airport is pretty skewed. I actually quite like Houston, it also has some price comedy spots thrown around ...
