I’m still relatively new, so don’t claim to know that much, but I will say APC must be taken with a massive grain of salt. Many of the same individuals with non-stop doom and gloom messaging, how the company screws everybody, lots of 100% false info on there, etc. APC is not a great reflection of reality, and I think that applies to every airline out there.
AA’s financials are not nearly as good as others, but I think we’ve seen the legacies really are too big to fail at this point. So, if living in DFW is what you want to do with life, then yeah, go for AA and don’t look back. For SWA, I’ve heard good things from friends there for the most part, but I personally didn’t want to be stuck in a 73 for my entire career flying to meh places. Variety over the course of a long career was worth something to me (and to many people); seniority is also a relatively slow progression there vs. others from what my friends say (friends came from SWA to DAL). There will always be good things about an airline and there will always be things to bitch about; there is not a perfect airline out there and APC is full of shit 99% of the time!