I guess I have been lucky. I have flown about 10 international trips in C or F since the beginning of 2010. In my experience, its like United is a different airline in 2010 and 2011 compared to the previous years. I have felt a very strong effort by every one of of the crews to provide good service and friendly service. In the previous 10 years, I have experience good and bad crews, but never the open hostility described by OP.
I have always found the food to be edible. I am a lover of fine food. I don't find UA's food particularly good in either C or F. However I haven't found SQ C food or LH C or F food to be up to standards that I would call "fine." While the food on SQ of LH might be better than UA (mostly, but not always), the difference would not be enough to make me choose one over the other. For me, a decent hard product, friendly FAs who are genuinely trying to make your flight a good experience are what makes my flight good.
If SFO flight crews are the surly ones, I guess that I am lucky to be flying out of the midwest.....perhaps that would be the silver lining of having moved from the bay area to DSM a few years ago
