You're certainly right that looking at a single factor like median income doesn't say anything about whether I'd want to live and work in a country or not. There is more to it, but it is largely determined by my personal preference, which differs from those of other people.

I think it is extremely hard to come up with a measurement for quality of life, but there are attempts to do it, e. g. the OECD Better Life Index http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

But then too many factors can be overwhelming and hard to visualize. While the flower like shapes in the OECD example look nice, I find it hard to draw any conclusions from them.