I lived in Charlotte twice, once from January 1991 to August 1991 and then again from October 1999 to December 2002.
When I was hired by USAir Charlotte was my first choice of places to be based. I went to Boston for a year first and then down to Charlotte. I didn't want to move to Boston and thought it wouldn't be much fun. I really wanted to go to Charlotte and thought it would be great. It ended up that the opposite was true. I really enjoyed Boston but was displaced to Charlotte.
Southern hospitality is a myth. Southern hopsitality is for people who are passing through, it does not apply to people who move there from somewhere else. When somebody from North Carolina asks you where you are from ( after you have moved there ) it means, " what city in the state of North Carolina are you from and what church do you go to ? " If the answer is somewhere other than North Carolina and you don't go to church then you are no longer welcome ( my answer was, " I'm from California, I'm neutral " ). You won't be wanted and you won't have any friends other than the other foreigners who are equally ostracized.
That said, it was a little better the second time around. The primary reason being that there was a higher proportion of non-North Carolinians to make friends with.
I don't know if you have children or not, but the public schools in North Carolina are crap. Anybody with money sends their kids to private school or perhaps they do home schooling.
Those are the big negatives. The positives are that it is a decent climate. The countryside is beautiful. There are a lot of activities within easy driving distance, i.e. the beach or the mountains. Homes are very affordable and will probably be more so when USAir liquidates.
Personally I prefer the area to the north and west of the airport. The second time I lived on the west side of Lake Norman in a community called Sailview. It would have been a very nice community to raise kids in. A large proportion off the residents were not from North Carolina so you could make friends and even the ones from North Carolina seemed friendlier than before. It was a 45 minute drive to the airport parking lot with traffic rarely ever a problem. It was a dry county though, which meant no good restaurants since they couldn't serve alcohol. The Sailview residents along with the nearby Verdict Ridge residents were trying to get that changed, not sure if it has happened or not.
If you live to the south or on the east side of Lake Norman then traffic becomes an issue when going to the airport in the morning. A lot of people swear by the south side of town though. They really like it, there are some very nice developments and shopping malls that attract the ladies. A good compromise might be the area around Highland Creek which is straight up 85 from the airport and not too far from the Concord airport.
TP
As an aside, I once told a southern F.A. that, " I'm from Switzerland, I'm neutral ". She started asking me all about Switzerland and what city I was from. Care to guess what her hair color was ?
Your New England wife is treated well because she does the same! 
