I wholeheartedly disagree. I don't fly SW except to save money, but everyone else I've spoken to with an opinion on airlines loves to say how much they love the carrier.
Coworkers and I went to look at the sea of unclaimed bags yesterday, and I mentioned that SW has drastically underpaid ground crews and have flight crews sleeping in crew rooms in airports, and they said that they'd repeatedly heard how much flight crews enjoy working for the company.
I really don't understand the appeal, but it's definitely out there.
Alaska Hawaiian [Delta American United Southwest] (rough tie here) Frontier Spirit
It depends on what you value. If you always fly first class, of course SW is worse. SW does offer a lot of direct flights that no other airlines offer. For me saving several hours in not changing planes is worth a slightly worse flight experience.
Also SW doesn't gouge you when cancelling or changing flights, unlike all the others.
In the Midwest I know a ton of business travelers (>1 trip/month) who default to Southwest. The weekly travelers tend to prefer the legacy carriers if they're available (so I'm sure there's something to your point even here) but IME Southwest rules the monthly/short notice flyers around me.
Everyone in my family preferred to fly southwest (at least before this round of incidents). Among other things, this was based on a history of better customer service especially in extenuating circumstances. They've been at the top of e.g. JD power customer satisfaction rankings for years.
If you're trying to say no one flies economy because it's their choice... I could certainly afford not to, but I _choose_ otherwise.
I also enjoy the extra legroom on Southwest.
This had to be before spirit and frontier came onto the scene.