It's true that the Business class service on the shortest flights is pretty poor, that's why I wrote "excepting the shortest routes" in my post above. I believe that before the recent improvement in catering the Business class service on, for example, the DUS-AMS and vv flight (which is the shortest segment I fly the most) was exactly the same as in Economy. Nowadays, I regularly get OLCI upgrade offers for €149 or €129...I mean, even in these days of improved catering, who is going to take one of those upgrades, and why?