Short answer: overall, I think WS has done a good job, but they seem to be emphasizing food quality/experience over other things, especially sleep. I see sleep as being crucial to a TATL J experience and as a result was disappointed. I'll consider WS for future trips, but I'm not keen to throw a lot of money at what I see as a sub-par experience.

Long answer: the seat is good. Relative to other airlines flying the same seat, they seem to have made some nice tweaks - a bit of extra storage, feels slightly more private.

Service was excellent, albeit bordering on obsequious on the way over.

The food was excellent. Possibly the best overall meal I've had on an airplane, ever.

They now warn you about timing before pushback - they say it will take 2.5 hours, start to finish, if you have a full meal. Well, on YYC-CDG they gave that warning, not sure it was mentioned on the way back. But it's still way too long. Let's take YYC-CDG as an example. It's 8:45 block time. Let's say 15 minutes from pushback to takeoff when that 2.5 hour clock starts (I clarified with the FA). You're going to be done dinner with about 6 hours left in the flight. Then they start serving breakfast with 2 hours to touchdown. Many people find breakfast service difficult to sleep through given the noise, cabin lights, etc. So even assuming 0 taxi time on arrival for simplicity, you're down to 4 hours of potential quality sleep time. (You could skip some or all of the meal, of course, but again, with lights on and all the noise of other people getting dinner service around you, I would say this isn't likely to offer high-quality sleep time).

I also have to say that the galley was horrendously noisy. The FAs seemed to be clanking around plates, bowls, utensils, glasses, etc all through the night. It was particularly bad for me being in 1K, but even my wife back in 4K found it disturbingly loud. And same issue on the return in 2K/3K. I suspect that because nothing is served on trays, the FAs have to get everything out and put it all away individually, and there's a ton of work involved with that.
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​​​​My wife also said that there was a steady stream of people coming up from PY to stretch their legs, which obviously adds to the noise and makes it more difficult to sleep. I don't know how much of that is just the FAs not enforcing people staying in their cabin and how much is the design with the tiny J cabin - most airlines have the J cabin taking up at least the space between L1 and L2, with a galley at L2, creating a more natural barrier.

The bottom line is that both of us got essentially no sleep, which was very disappointing. As good as the food was, I would much rather have a lower quality meal, served a lot more quickly, and get some good rest, than have an exquisite fine dining experience. If I didn't want to sleep, I could save thousands of dollars by flying PY and then spending a fraction of that to have an amazing meal on the ground.

I don't generally sleep on westbound TATLs, so with my noise-cancelling headphones on and watching the IFE or my own device and working, the return flight wasn't such an issue, but my wife wanted to sleep and she said the noise from the galley prevented her from getting any good rest.

Another drawback was the lack of air vents. Honestly, who the .... is ordering brand new planes without personal air vents? WS isn't the only airline doing it, but man does that drive me nuts. If the cabin is too cold for some, they can put on a sweater, use a blanket, etc, but nothing you can do if it's too hot and you don't have an air vent to adjust the temperature a bit. The YYC-CDG wasn't as bad as when I flew CX JFK-HKG a couple of months ago and they had it at about 28C, but it was still a bit too warm.

So as far as WS vs the competition, I'd say in many respects, they're doing very well. Seat, food quality, service, all very good. And I would happily choose them over BA or AC on those aspects. But if I'm flying TATL J, I want to be able to sleep, and WS is at massive disadvantage there. So for the time being, I'm likely to continue to prefer AC.