I've been BA Silver and AC *G (35k and 50k) for several years each. And I'm really surprised by what you say. I would say BA is more consistent whereas AC falls short of its promises more often but at least part of that is because AC actually tries to do so many things and BA just keeps doing the same thing for decades. The food on AC is so much worse but the hard product is so much better. And *A is soo much more useful of a network with better lounges everywhere that I would never want to trade *G for OW status.

(The reason I actually did switch to BA was I was after upgrades from economy and the eupgrades came in making upgrades much harder. Whereas on BA any PY fare can be upgraded using miles -- and at the time very few miles -- without any copay).