To summarize, all these work environments can be attractive and can be disappointing. It depends on the person to be fascinated by the positive features or annoyed by the negative ones. Of course, the personal character here plays an important role. I, as someone with a positive and easy-going attitude, enjoyed all my previous positions. Now, I like working on applied industrial projects at IT’IS foundation and, on the other hand, can think about ground-breaking ideas at ETH Zurich.
There is sometimes a wrong belief that doing a Ph.D. is not needed for industrial jobs. It may not be required, but having a PhD-type experience helps correctly figure out and solve the problems. However, by not doing a Ph.D., only the door to an exciting job market in academia is closed. I would recommend everyone do a Ph.D. and then decide where to go considering his/her attitude and the above points.