In my experience most airports just plain suck. But some are definitely better than others.
Got a favorite airport?
My personal favorite is Louisville (SDF). My in-laws live about 20 miles north in Indiana so I’ve been there a lot. It’s relatively small and it’s almost never busy. I always breeze through security, even on the rare occasion when there is a line. When coming in, the luggage conveyors are right next to the car rentals, and all the cars are right outside from there (I’ve been in airports where all of those things are seemingly as far away from each other as possible). It’s one of the few airports that are actually in the middle of the city; if we ever actually stayed in Louisville that would be super convenient. I’ve never had a bad experience here.
Schiphol in Amsterdam I remember always finding pleasant to pass through, and there’s a quick and easy train into Amsterdam from there if you’ve got a few hours to kill on a layover.
Venice Marco Polo, just because the trip from the airport to the city is the best in the world.
Portland, OR, and not just because I live here. The place has decent restaurants, live musicians, is reasonably attractive, and is easy to navigate.
CLT, Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Mainly because flying out of Pittsburgh we never get a direct flight. Charlotte beats Atlanta by a mile. What’s so great about it? It sucks a little less than our other options, plus there’s the familiarity factor.
Orlando, because whenever I board the monorail to the terminal and the automated voice asks me to make sure my arms and legs are not in the doorway, I always get a kick out of muttering to myself “por favor, mantengase alejado de las puertas.”
Second place is either London Gatwick as the non-American airport I’ve been to the most which is more enjoyable due to a more relaxed security vibe, and Philadelphia, which last time I was there had a decent cheesesteak place, at least compared to other airport food.
John Wayne in Orange County is great. One of my daughters lives in OC, and it is nice to be able to avoid LAX. Of course, it is quite small - and even limits late night landings.
How long will we have to wait for someone to say O’Hare is their fave? 
Koh Samui airport (Thailand) - it’s open-sided straw huts, and after check in you can loll around on the grass outside with a cocktail. And little golf-cart-like trains like you find in amusement parks take you to your plane.
Burbank. Took about 3 minutes to walk through the door, check bag, clear security and arrive at departure gate.
**PHL **(Philadelphia International) is my home airport. Good international connections, which I need and right on the train line, which is nice. By the way, I had to go through **NWK **(Newark) recently. My goodness that has gone downhill.
FRA has excellent connections and good showers. I am always disappointed by the food.
Port Columbus International (CMH) in Columbus, Ohio. Also biased as that is my home airport. Big enough to have flight options on all the major carriers and it has 3 concourses yet it is small enough to be easy to navigate, have short lines through TSA security checkpoints, and fast baggage delivery. My only two complaints are food and lack of hub relationship. The food options are not the greatest but they’re good enough and considering CMH is not a hub so most travelers are either originating or terminating their travel at CMH. You don’t have a lot of connections via CMH where people have time to kill and need to grab a meal. Which leads to the lack of hub. As a frequent traveler I can get anywhere I need to go from CMH but if we had a hub relationship with a major airline it would open up much more direct flight options. Unfortunately that is probably never going to happen considering the geographic locations of major airline hubs in relation to Columbus so… shrug
I travel coast-to-coast in the US for business and have been through most of the major airports. ATL gets it’s fair share of criticism but frankly no one moves more people per day as efficiently as that airport. I have TSA-Pre and getting through TSA security there is pretty fast even with the volume of travelers. I also like the Delta terminal in Detroit - clean, modern, easy to navigate, internal tram to get from end-to-end, and good food/beverage options. CLT is pretty good too (can you see I have an east coast bias?) but sometimes that hike between concourses can get brutal.
I really dislike Philadelphia, Laguardia, Newark, and Dulles in the northeast.
Rapid City, South Dakota. It has only 6 gates and I have never seen it very busy. It is about a 300 yard walk from the rental car parking lot to the farthest gate, with baggage claim right on the way. The TSA line rarely has any wait at all - pre-check there is a waste of money. RAP is a completely stress-free airport - unless, of course, weather causes cancellations. Then you have basically zero options 
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Yup. I’m probably biased, but it’s the nicest in the States. Everything you said, plus waiting areas at the gates don’t have TVs blaring at you, restaurants and shops charge the same prices as outside the airport, and there’s a 17-seat free movie theater showing indie short films. It’s really peaceful to relax in a comfy chair and watch a movie before your flight or during a layover.
General William J. Fox Airfield, because it’s where I learned to fly. It’s the home of Barnes Aviation, which was started by Bill and Shouling Barnes, the son and daughter-in-law of Pancho Barnes Dad had his planes on leaseback there.
When I lived in NJ I went out of Newark all the time. Was it ever uphill?
I like the Indianapolis Airport. It is fairly new and isn’t up to capacity yet. Rental cars are an easy walk from the terminal, and there is a nice deli in the Southwest terminal area.
Reagan is pretty good also thanks to the good Metro connection.
The SFO International Terminal has good food and interesting exhibits. The rest of the airport I try to avoid.
DCA, Washington National. Ok, the food and drink prices are definitely on the high side, but DC isn’t cheap.
There’s a cool history exhibit in the middle of the airport if you’ve got some time to kill.
Metro station right there and very easy to navigate.
And, friendly employees. I landed there a couple of months ago and immediately had to take a work phone call and log in remotely with my laptop. Took me over an hour until I got to baggage claim and it was so easy to get my bag which they had stored. With this hyper paranoid security situation, I’m surprised it was wasn’t destroyed.
Security most of the year is pretty good, most people are frequent fliers so you don’t get as many amateurs flying for the first time since Reagan was president!
As a connecting point I rather like MSP. It’s less prone to delays than O’Hare and has a certain Midwestern charm to it. It can be a long walk between gates in the Lindbergh Terminal where all of Delta’s flights are (and I always seem to end up having to get from Coucourse F to A or B or vise-versa, the longest possible walk in that terminal), but I consider that a positive if I have time. I like to get in a nice walk between flights and will avoid the moving walkways and trams and just walk the whole way if time permits. And there are some decent places to grab a meal between flights. At Twinburger in Concourse G you can get a “Juicy Lucy”, a cheeseburger that puts the cheese in a pocket inside the patty and a Minneapolis specialty.
I do enjoy the public exhibits at SFO, but the airport is rather delay prone which lowers them a few points in my book. As I understand it the runways are too close together to allow simultaneous instrument approaches, so any time fog rolls in, which is often given that it’s San Francisco, effectively one runways goes out of service.
For about 15 years I was getting on an airplane almost weekly. My favorites were: my home airport, Detroit Metro; Baltimore; and Kansas City for it’s simplicity and ease.
(Least favorite goes to Miami, with O’Hare close behind.)
Burlington, VT (BTV).
I begin to feel all the stress leaving my body the minute the plane makes that final approach turn over Lake Champlain and I’m surrounded by mountains and water.
I fly in and out of there once or twice a year on the way to Montreal just for that feeling.