My parents have lived in Memphis for 14 years, so I've flown in and out quite a bit. It's always been a very expensive city for flights. Many times I tried to convince them to drive to BNA to pick me up, and they have many friends who fly out of Little Rock or Nashville to take advantage of Southwest's lower fares. We were hopeful that the Air Tran/Southwest deal would bring lower fares to MEM.
They complain a lot about how service has gone downhill since the Delta-NW merger. Delta has cancelled tons of flights that NW used to operate out of Memphis, so now you have to go through ATL to get almost anywhere. My parents have several other friends who specifically retired in MEM to take advantage of the hub and nonstops to AMS, etc, and they are very unhappy now that Delta is getting rid of those flights.
And never check a bag if you fly into MEM. It will take 30+ min for it to arrive on the carousel.