I don't subscribe to the LG glory days theory...though admittedly I only caught the last couple of years there, it may have been better before that. There were great girls and lots of fun, but there were sometimes lame girls, though of course they didn't last long. We had stonking parties at Westminster and Edgware Rd too, some of my best parties were the themed parties at Westminster. I've also had some great ones at the latest Phoenix venue.
I agree that Em's timely interjections as she toured the rooms at the previous venues did add something and spurred us onto greatness. I suppose the one room set-up at Phoenix doesn't lend itself to this as much. Also, I guess she must have seen just about everything many times over the years, so I wouldn't blame her if her enthusiasm had waned somewhat.
As to the VFM aspect, you can't really expect to compare prices from 5-10 years ago. Yes, there are less girls at Phoenix, but you still get 2hrs non-stop action and the ratios are still 2:1 max. I very rarely got round all 7 girls at LMP, mostly 5, sometimes 6, so it's not much difference in reality. £32 a go sounds like good value to me.
I too pick carefully the line-ups I want to attend as there are about half a dozen girls I just don't fancy or I don't seem to click with, but when there's 5 on the rota that I like, I still have a lot of fun there. I was there earlier this month and had a stonking party with Luiza & Nicole et al.
There's still nothing with comparable quality & ratios in London for the price. There are cheaper, longer parties with less attractive girls and higher ratios, like LSAP. There are slightly cheaper ones with attractive girls, but higher ratios, like GGP & FuckClub. But nothing that competes directly.
Cambridge Parties is the only outfit I can think of that offers a guaranteed 2:1 ratio and they want £220 for 2.5hrs with breaks.