Pros
You own your work. Nobody was micromanaging me (I reported totally to 3 people over the years).. Benefits were good - I did not realize that until saw other companies' benefits. About 99% are really nice people.
Cons
I was bored. Economy did not support any kind of switch to more challenging work unless you wanted to travel to Mexico. Too many people are promoted because they are willing to travel and either don't care about leaving the family or are single - so they can travel. Too many really great workers were let go for political reasons (in tight economy). Politics don't surface THAT much when things are good. Nepotism is there. A lot of old boys network. But that's in a lot of places - this is not a bad environment although I hear it is not as good as it used to be a while back.