Pros
Still plenty of smart people working there. Experience with Industry standard, open and proprietary software and hardware platforms in a large environment. Pay was always above average although rarely excellent. AOL has gone through a lot of changes, which I allude to in the "Con" section, but it also still had some possibilities left open when I left. Although contracting from it's greatest size down to a smaller and spun-off successor organization, leaving Time Warner behind can only be considered a plus at this point. There are definitely places that AOL is working to grow in, and honestly, if they make good decisions, like avoiding debacles like Bebo, they can still pull something off. While I would never suggest someone who has never worked there apply for work there, I know enough people, and have enough experience there, that I might consider a position there again... assuming they can pull it together and get back some energy like they used to have.
Cons
AOL was clearly a company consumed by terrible past business decisions, and so it's outlook was always going to be rocky. Starting at a time where the millionaires of the IPO and Time Warner merger were not just old stories, it's clear that the AOL I worked for was still a leader, but in it's current incarnation, well past it's prime. While I was never personally affected by layoffs, there was the constant threat of it hanging over the heads of everyone at the end of the year. Many good people were let go in masses at those times. Note, I have not been at AOL for a while, and when I left, even the headquarters campus was being leased off from the original seven, crowded buildings when I started, down to just three, and the actual HQ for the company had moved to NYC, far from it's technical roots. Unless you know that you are going to work on something extraordinary there, it's just a job, and it may well be a depressing one at that, considering that if you walk the corridors at CC2/CC1/HQ, you can tell that it used to be something special almost on the order of excitement of working at Google might be today.