You have my sympathy because you are right, had you taken the later a380, you would have encountered a significantly better hard product. With reasonable sized screens, 2 x usb ports and on the windows, really handy storage containers.
Not just with BA, (And I reminded here specifically of the differences between the AF F product on the 777's and the a380 noted by SFO777 in his trip reports), but many carriers have different hard product offerings across the fleet so it really behoves any traveler, not least a FF like the OP, to really do their due diligence to be sure you are getting the product you think you are getting (subject to last minute equipment changes).