I think people confuse 'being happy with their ntl product' with 'being happy with ntl's "service"
I have said in the past that for me personally the product was ok. DTV picture was poor, but I got fed up of them sending out monkies who didn't have a clue, & as I don't really watch that much TV it wasn't a major issue. My BB was good over the 3 or so years I had it-3 outages in 3 years is ok by me (apart from the email issues which was what finally made me ditch ntl & get DSL), but the biggest issue here is when you phone up with a problem, & you get batted round from dept to dept, because no one really gives a to$$, no one really wants to own your problem.
I still believe this is caused by upper management not supporting their staff as they are too busy covering their ar$e$ in case somebody actually realises how little they do, & how responsible they actually are for the way ntl treats it's customers.
Like I said, there's a big difference between being happy with the product, & happy with the service. I was happy with the former, but far from happy with the latter.