I took my first flight ever on US metal 2 weeks ago. ORD-PHL on an A321 in F. The plane was disgusting. Torn seats and carpet, missing and hanging trim pieces on the walls, peeling paint (or whatever that top coating is) in the overhead bins, and third world lavs. I found the seat pitch to be less than AA first and the seats were very uncomfortable compared to the AA 737 F seats. The best word to describe it is "grim". I can't imagine how it was in back, especially without MCE available. Unless and until the legacy US planes are brought up to AA standards (which are not that high to begin with), I am done with US metal.
Cabin crew was okay. Not any different from AA F crews.
I've never been on a worn US a321 and I'm on them almost weekly. I will take a US A321 in coach over any AA MCE every time. US A321 have, in my opinion, the best coach seats of any domestic plane flown by any airline.....10A-C, 9D-E, row 22, etc.....
As far as Flight attendants - both US/AA have gr8 and terrible ones....in my experience, CLT based crews are consistently the best in the US system followed by PHX.....I can't point to a crew base with AA that is as consistently good as the US crews in CLT and PHX, but I can tell you that MIA crews are the worst!
I am surprised that Douggies crew hasn't whipped AA FA's over their lack of serving a PDB.....It's been over a year - I have seen NO improvement from AA on this.
Lastly, I am curious to see how many FA's ultimately serve 16 seat F cabins when fully combined.....AA usually has 2 on the 737 while US has 1 on the A321.....however, I can't really tell much of a difference in service because the US F FAs on the a321 usually bust their a** to get everything done....so, if you think not getting a PDB in AA F is bad now, wait until they drop the extra attendant in F...which I fully expect to happen....sorry for the ramble.