This is an interesting itinerary in that you got to experience opposing ends of BA’s market in a single trip. Namely, Basic Economy on a European point-to-point hop and First Class Long Haul. While I think your expectations are/were entirely reasonable for the latter, in the case of the former your expectations (based on experience elsewhere) were sadly high of the mark.
For good or ill, BA are competing against LCC’s for European Y travel, hence the introduction of things like Buy-on-Board and seat densification. Basic Economy fares are an extension of this model, removing the last bells and whistles like assignable seating and checked luggage for the lowest fare. These things have been debated extensively on this forum, and I have my own thoughts on them, but it is what it is, as the saying goes.
As these were separate tickets you also lost additional benefits like protected connections and through-checked baggage (which is something that other carriers, even in oneworld, but not BA, offer on separate tickets).
Ironically, had you booked this as a single OTP-YVR ticket, many of your concerns about your OTP-LHR experience would have been negated. You would have been booked in to Club Europe on your short-haul connection, giving you:
- Assignable seating at OLCI
- Guaranteed empty middle seat so zero risk of being assigned one
- Complimentary food & drink
- Luggage through-checked to your final destination
You say your ticket was cheap, but not LCC cheap. So I guess the question is did the savings on buying a separate HBO ticket for your short haul flight balance out the things you lost had you booked a single OTP-YVR routing?