What were you on? You may have mentioned it and I apologize if so for brushing it over. Whatever you chose, what were your top 3? That being asked, if you were SSN how disappointing were the things fore mentioned in the quote?
I was on an SSN. I chose it because I liked the mission better and didn't joint the Navy to stay in one spot. Also, if I decided to stay in, I wanted my 2nd tour to be on an SSBN so that it's more conducive to family (you cannot do two SSBN tours for JO/DH, but you can do two consecutive SSN tours although they try to get you to alternate).
I happened to get very lucky, so I enjoyed my tour very much. By that I mean I hit the boat at a point where the most junior JO had been aboard for something like 18 months; the rapid turnover of every dolphin-qualified JO leaving in the first 12 months I was on board led me to be put into positions quicker than I normally would've otherwise. I stood JOOD on deployment and we made some good port calls. Even got a bonus one thanks to NR's mandated RC div stand-down.
I also spent time in the yard after deployment and was the third to rotate off the boat (this is the 'good' time to be there because you have a fat, fully qualified wardroom and thus a really good duty rotation. The "bad" time is for the guys left behind when the DHs are standing 3-section SDO, you have 3 section EDO, and everyone else is riding another sub to get qualified).
HOWEVER, I also had a CO who would stick with something once it 'worked.' So guys who showed up about 6-8 months after me never got to stand an underway OOD while qualified because they didn't fill that billet during pre-deployment training. The fact that we went into drydock right after deployment meant that those guys' careers will start and end in the ER unless they raised their hands to ride another boat. The thing is, with JO tours so short and manning relatively fat, no one wants a fully qualified JO for a deployment to stand JOOD/surfaced OOD; they have a hard enough time getting their own guys that experience. It's not a coincidence that I and the other JOs who stood a forward watch on deployment are staying in and most of the guys stuck in the ER for deployment are getting out. We got to participate in the cool stuff; they got to watch gages that never moved.
Having said that, some people were nonplussed at the 'cool stuff' and standing watch on station dancing with the one-eyed lady so a team of crypto guys taking up everyone's racks can record stuff on hard drives can get old. You don't even know what they're downloading.
I suppose that's the long way of telling you that you can't really predict what your experience is going to be like. It depends a lot on the boat's schedule, where you go on deployment, how good your CO is at training JOs and his tolerance for pain in doing so, and your Eng's ability to schedule critical events while you are a nuke divo.
But if you go SSBN, you can probably guarantee that you'll go underway to 'hide with pride' and do 'drilling and killing' for 3 months with a TRE at the end, turnover, stay behind to train for 3 months, turnover, go underway for 3 months and do engineering drills ad nauseum with an ORSE at the end, turnover, etc., etc. for ad nauseum. Still, a lot can depend on your CO and command climate. It's just the nature of the Navy -- there is a lot of latitude given to COs and a good/bad CO can make or break your experience. The upside is that once the boat is gone with the other crew, you don't stand any duty while in-port and essentially just have a day job.
My biggest complaint (and this is not unique to SSNs) was that you don't really get to make many decisions as a sub JO, both on watch and in terms of your division. On watch, almost everything you do has to be approved by the CO (forward and some aft) or Eng (aft). As a nuke divo, the training framework is dictated by NR and planned by the Eng. Forward it's done by the XO. And despite the way the boat trains for ORSE drills, the CO/ENG don't want to talk to a JO when something important in the plant breaks, even when he has the right answer. A lot of people sign up to be officers to make decisions, but you won't get many opportunities to do that in your first tour -- at least not decisions that matter. Almost universally when I talked to guys from other boats at PNEO, JOs felt heavily micro-managed. Your job on-watch/on-duty is to execute a plan you probably had little input, if any, into making while ensuring everyone follows proper safety protocols. You'll spend most of your time off-watch keeping up admin programs and monitoring maintenance. But that is also a common complaint in the SWO world. The only way to get away from this in the unrestricted line world is to go pilot or SEAL where there's not an O-4/O-5 standing over your shoulder while you do your job. Really, you're there to learn the basics of standing watch in the plant, ship driving, and get a sampling of how all the departments work. That's about it.
My second biggest complaint is COs like to reinvent the wheel, so when XO/CO (or Commodore sometimes) turnover you can expect to re-do standing plans and training plans not because it's wrong, but so it is in a format he desires.