I am willing to admit I am an SB person for a few reasons.

1- It's along my route when I run errands in the morning. No DD, no Panera, and I certainly do not purchase gas station coffee.
2- Whenever I'm in there, it's in and out. The Panera that's nearest to me, people are either chatting with the cashiers, or have no idea what to order, or need them to explain every little detail. Slightly aggravating.
3- I order black coffee. I'm not a latte or whatever kind of person. Any SB black coffee I've consumed there is consistent (whether it's consistently good or crap is up to the taster to interpret but I feel that it's good).
4- The SB store I go to does a percentage off of coffee close to it's expiration.

I have my personal thoughts about the perceived downturn that SB has experienced, most of which I will not divulge here but bottom line is I support SB, due to conveience and ease and I really could care less of what people say about that.