Long answer
I love competition. I find it wonderful to spend a few hours trying to out-think and out-play an opponent. Privateer Press just cares about the tournament scene and actively balances around that. The game is, without scenarios, bonkers over-the-top. With no scenarios, certain factions or lists will crush others. A lot like some other games we've played, it can get ugly.
Privateer
Enter PP. The game needs some balancing. PP wanted to created THE tournament game. What did they do? They rewrote the rules to accomodate the tournament scene. They created scenarios that effectively comp the factions (Character Restrictions, etc). They tweak their official mission pack EVERY tournament season and fix what wasn't working. There is an actual official mission pack, hehe. Privateer CARES for their player base and it is just such a wonderful environment.
The community is a reflection of what PP has created. I've played and met people from up and down the east coast now, including a couple of players from Texas, some of the Dark Omen guys, players from Dragon's Den in Poughkeepsie and my own local group and most of them are simply amazing guys I'd hang out with anyway. People are people, I can't say that every player you ever meet will be amazing, but I've yet to meet someone I wouldn't play.
There's diversity within the player community. Most of the folk I've played with have several factions they play and most tournaments will see quite a few different factions show up. There will always be the ebb and flow that is natural with this sort of thing but you'll see quite a lot of stuff. In other words, you won't see power armor across the table all the time, hehe.
Hobby
Painting all sorts of different models is fun. Coming from what is mainly a 40k background, painting a ton of flesh is fun. When I'm in the mood to hit up armor again, I can paint some of the warjacks or colossi. There are a lot of different things to paint.
I know some of you are 40k players and, more than just players, quite zealous about 40k. That's cool, I've got not issues with that. However, I will suggest that those of you who simply love tournament gaming to give WM a go.
WAIT, don't simply play a game or two. Play in a Steamroller. Play in two or three. See what you think after that. As much as I loved playing 40k in tournaments, the scene, the environment, the support from GW, just wasn't there. Don't get me wrong, the people are great, most have been, but I want to play to see who the better player is. 40k just can't do that. With WM, if I lost, it's usually because I just screwed up, got out-played. That's what I want in a competitive game.