I find this debate interesting, especially the "I won't sail NCL again" comments. I know it is annoying to feel pushed into paying more, but why not just accept it and look at the overall cost as I do?
A bit of background. We have only been on 3 cruises - 2 with Disney (out of USA) for 6 and 7 nights and a Royal Caribbean from Australia (home) over 9 nights.
The Disney cruises were great. Dinner rotated over 3 restaurants with largely changing menus, so you only went to each restaurant 2-3 times. Buffets were also great.
We were told by our TA there was no need to book SD on RC. We did for one night (NYE) and it was fantastic, but were bitterly disappointed in MD for the rest. The menu barely changed and the food was very average. Even though they had another dining room at our sailing class we couldn't go there (I know the menu was the same but a change of decor would be nice.) We ended up eating at the buffet and one smaller free (included) restaurant that we found which was much nicer.
The breakfast and lunch buffets were a was a bit disappointing too - no seafood at lunch and the same boring fruit at breakfast (would it break the bank to buy a few berries RC?)
So Disney food was much better BUT Disney was almost twice the price. We said we would never cruise again without factoring in SD for the majority of the trip as I feel dining is a huge part of a cruise.
Our next cruise (out of Miami) will be with NCL for 7 nights. Comes with 2 SD and now just debating how many more to pay for. Probably 5 SD all up for Mum and Dad and 4 for the kids. In the end, it will still be a thousands cheaper than the Disney cruise we were looking at as an alternative.