not all the way, but yes tons of good things about it. Hopefully soon they will offer retirement visa. For now the 3 month visa works fine and they don't really bother you about back to back visa... Sadly houses, cars, motorbikes are cheaper in TH. Also the driving style is better in TH :)
PH sucks, probably the worse food in Asia and really nothing special about it. I suggest bouncing between TH and VN. While many aren't worried about the tax issue in TH, I suggest for now staying there under 180 days like many others and I are doing to see how things will actually go down.
BS, have you gone through the application process, cause I have. Contact their office and see they will say, very much depends on the school you were at and most of the BS schools do not qualify for it.
very much depends on which school one went to, most people with educational visas will not get approved. Feel free to contact their office to confirm or join the Elite Visa FB group as this topic has been discussed there.
Carful with the Educational visa as that will most likely exclude you from getting the Elite Visa if you eventually would want to go that route till you're 50 at which time you could consider the retirement visa.