I felt OP went through a low point a couple of years ago. They seemed to lose a few regular writers to the opposition coupled with the sad death of one of my favourite columnists Steve Day. I nearly stopped getting it, but in the last year or so it's really picked up again, especially after they signed up people like Joe Cornish and Colin Prior. It's a far more intelligent magazine than the other UK mags with less emphasis on hardware. The others are very formulaic and keep on rehashing the same articles year on year, e.g. it's May therefore it's the "Landscape Special" with yet another article on how to use polarisers, ND grads and warmup filters! I also really like the broader articles that people like Nial Benvie do on photography and the environment.
Cheers
Mike