I'm in DEN about 40 times a year connecting. It's probably my favorite major hub for a connection.

My reasons:

- You guys have already hit on it and it may be purely psychological, but it just feels open and bright. Maybe some of it is that it's usually sunny in Denver. Some of it is the wide concourses. In any case, it's refreshing compared to places like IAD and ORD, which always feel cramped, crowded, and gloomy.

- Food and beer. I can always find a seat at a bar that serves both food and beer, together on one tab. At ORD, I sometimes can't find a bar seat anywhere, or I find one at a place that has no food. Sure, they don't mind if I walk next door to get pizza and bring it back to drink beer, but how convenient is that? Besides, I can usually expense one dinner receipt as long as I don't get stupid and drink six beers. I can't expense two dinner receipts. (My favorite: upstairs at the Mexican joint in the middle of B. No, it's not the smokers' lounge: that's also upstairs, but it's in a different area.)

- Gate agents seem relatively pleasant given that it's a hub. Last week, I was flying SEA-MCI-DEN. I made the 6AM SEA-DEN as a standby, hoping to connect to a 10:15AM DEN-MCI, again as a standby. We were about 20 minutes late into DEN, and I thought surely I was hosed. But I ran down to the MCI gate anyway. Upon arrival, I saw an empty gate area and one agent who said "You must be Mr. Pinniped from the Seattle flight. I saw you were running late - you got the last seat on this one." I boarded, she closed the door behind me. I was flabbergasted: nobody at ORD or any other hub station has ever waited to close the door for me when I was just a standby to begin with.

Only thing I don't like about DEN is the lack of electrical outlets. I wish they'd install those stations like ORD has now... Of course, the best tip I've seen in a long time was in this month's Wired Magazine: carry a very small power strip with you and you'll make a lot of friends at airports!