"I've never said ATP has no bad CFIs. I don't drink their kool-aid. I've never set foot in an ATP location"
LAFF, you come across at this site as though you're a spokesperson/marketing rep for ATP. Quite the cheerleader. Yet you've never set foot in an ATP location nor done any training there?
I trained at a little flight school and ended up at UPS. Little FBO's aren't all bad. Your self admitted bitterness towards them is fine but you run around this site telling every newb that ATP is the only way. What's sad is a few are gonna listen to you like you have some experience with it outside the internet, which you don't.
ATP is a great place to train for those who want to go that route. The smaller flight school is a great place to train for others. There are advantages to the little schools that don't include getting on at a regional in min time but that will make a better pilot out of you. To me, that's important.
My biggest beefs with ATP are the low CFI pay, the lack of a chance to experience the world outside of the ATP system, and the reliance on inexperienced CFI's who were PPL's 90 days ago. You could do better at an FBO, in some cases. In some cases, maybe not, but to discount all FBO's blindly in favor of ATP does a disservice to the newbs who read this site.