I dislike the uk for purely practical reasons (expensive and wages aren't higher to compensate outside finance, not actually different enough from the US to be interesting to me). I knew about RIP but not about the border detention issue. My international flights tend to be nonstop or via very particular airports due to weapons laws (when I was flying to Iraq often), or to Asia, not Europe. I'd also probably not go via the UK due to frequent flyer status on Star Alliance which doesn't use London as a hub for flights to continental Europe as much.

You're best off to go through either Schiphol, Paris or Frankfurt (in that order). Paris has really good connections to Latin America as well (direct flights), Schiphol not as many but quite a few.

As a Star Alliance person, it's almost always Frankfurt. LH Senator made it a whole lot better, too.

AF had a cool "Petroleum Club" program, too, which let anyone marginally affiliated with the oil industry get free lounge access and other benefits.

I'd still almost always prefer making my connection within the US and flying nonstop from the US to my final European destination. I generally only fly ex-SFO, JFK, IAD so there's generally a non-stop flight anyway.