I agree that onboard service ranges from poor to excellent, and FA's are free to work anywhere in that range. I also agree that if I was a high seniority FA who could hold JFK-EZE, LAX-HKG, etc., where I basically worked 3-4 roundtrips a month, had the rest of the month off, made a decent salary with health insurance and pension, and had flight benefits, I would think that was a pretty cool job. It might even be particularly cool if you worked in J or F and could wander through the cabin, talking to people (many of whom are pretty interesting), giving them free drinks etc.
That being said, if I was in OP's shoes, I would have taken advantage of a post-merger initiative and wandered over to the Flagship Lounge where service ranges from very good to excellent and where people seem readily available to fix problems. Alternatively, I have the EXP line on speed dial where its almost always picked up the same way it was before the merger and people fix my flight problems. The last time I called EXP with an IRROPS problem, it was fixed before I got from gate 38 to gate 40 and I was rebooked in F.