I don't care about the inflight food (the presence thereof) in coach.
However, UA's planes are shabby, paint peeling off, very dirty inside. The hard product should improve with the new C.
I too was able to upgrade on UA with relative ease. Upgrading with 15k miles a pop domestically is rather steep unless its a p.s. When I was 1K on United, I don't think I sat in back once. And it was pretty nice. But UA cancels a lot more flights than CO, and other times they are very badly delayed (esp ORD and SFO).
RCCs are pathetic compared to the pclub.