Stephen
Welcome to FlyerTalk. An interesting set of questions, if I may make a suggestion, if you are going to ask a lot of detail from other FT members it would be good if you filled in a little of your Public Profile here on FT so we know something about who we are addressing; I suspect you are not from an English-speaking country, for example, and it would be interesting to know which one you are from, or which University you are at.
I use Ryanair quite a lot each year, although not as much as BA, from London to various points as my various business trips arise. Some answers to your questions.
1. I expect punctuality, as direct a service as possible, minimum ground delays, etc. I also expect to get what I (or my company) pay for, so I am aggrieved by full fare tickets which lead to very discounted travel experiences. I think it is silly to say one expects things like safety because that is an absolute given on any air carrier anyway, thanks to the various regulatory bodies and thanks also to all the airlines themselves, whether full fare or discount, for invariably behind the PR front of the marketing and executive types you always find a group of knowledgeable and competent aviation professionals, in Ryanair just as much as at BA. This doesn't always go for things like ground services though.
2. Full service is important to me on business travel, because very often we have hectic days of rushing from meetings to airports etc; on the plane can be the only chance to get anything to eat during the day, even if travelling short haul, and the lounge is a chance to make productive use of time hanging round at airports. I never use in-flight entertainment, even going to Australia (apart from the Airshow on screen). Ryanair seem to have this about right because although they do not have free food and drink, they actively sell it on every trip. One of their hot cheese and ham rolls, a beer, and a packaged cake, costing about EUR 10 in all, can be very welcome. CEO Michael O'Leary once said his airline provided "the cheapest airfares and the most expensive cheese sandwiches in Europe".
3. Main reason to use Ryanair is to get where I am going. Their base at Stansted near London is more convenient to my house than Heathrow, and the processing time there is less too. They do an early morning flight to Dublin which is just not available early enough from my real local airport, London City. The secondary airports they tend to use away from the major ones can be more convenient for certain final destinations.
4. I find their punctuality is very good; in fact I am amazed they get such consistent on-time performance out of their old 737-200 fleet (now being withdrawn) which major airlines gave up long ago. The overcrowding at Heathrow, leading to queues for takeoff, holding for landing, waiting for a gate to become available, waiting for baggage, etc, cause such delays going through there (it always seems worse on short haul than long haul). This doesn't show in the official figures, at Heathrow which show landing times and exclude waits for gates, or for baggage. Ryanair's frequency is also good. There's a perception that they ignore complaints, but I've never found too much to complain about. They turned me away once when they changed their ID rules, which hacked me off.
5. Regarding their customer service, although they exude a "take it or leave it" attitude, and FAs (especially Dublin-based) can be grumpy or (London based) have poor English, and similar attributes, you must understand that Ryanair is an Irish airline and these are really just standard attributes of Irish businesses in general, with a fit-in-with-me attitude to their customers that is unusual in Britain, USA and other countries.
6. The seating pitch is that which has been known to generations of European travellers to Mediterranean holidays on charter flights, and at 6'0" it gives me no problem. Americans, who seem to be both taller and fatter than any other country, and becoming increasingly so, have a problem with it, but they make up such a small percentage of Ryanair travellers. And the unreserved seating does actually give me a greater percentage of window seats (my preference) than the Heathrow airlines, despite me often arriving late and getting a high boarding number.
8. Ryanair's website is fine for me, others in the office have difficulties with it, like booking for the wrong day, I guess it's average. I know my way round it now.
10. There have always been plenty of seniors on Ryanair ever since they started, old Irish gentlemen who still put on their old traditional shabby black suits and hats to travel to Britain in, or small groups of grandmothers, often with several generations of their descendents in tow and showing them the way round the airport ! I'm sure they appreciate the 1 hour plane trip over the old all day or all night train-ship-train lengthy and tiring journey they used to have to do if they couldn't afford high Aer Lingus fares (such surface travel has bitten the dust thanks to Ryanair). There's always been a tradition of cheap routes from Ireland to Britain going back to the days when vegetable pickers came over on the "cattle boats" with the cows; it's just an extension of that, appealing to all ages and incomes.
11. Ryanair, Easyjet, and a few others (but not all the recent upstarts) will become Europe-wide, and they have set the agenda for significant changes at the mainstream carriers, some of whom found carrying on with inefficient traditions put them out of business (eg Sabena, Swissair). The market is big enough for multiple types of service now. I don't think they will expand into long haul. They will stick at what they are good at.
12. No suggestions. They wouldn't listen anyway. Michael O'Leary thinks he knows it all. In fact, he does know most of it.