It is not all or nothing! The 12 year old KID (remember he is 12 and probably in 6th or maybe 7th grade) has the chance to play for the relatively successful LL or drive 30 minutes further away for each practice to play on a travel club that is relatively unknown in terms of coaching/playing time/etc. This kid is a few years away from high school ball! Moreover, the parent mentions that the kid has and does play travel as well, just not for this new slick team that practices at a college facility!
Those with older kids know that your persepctive changes as you go through the process, and you have the value of hindsight. Very few of us have the luxury of thinking we did everything perfectly! My own 2 cents is that you cannot play LL forever and this is the year for this kid. In our case, as I mentioned, mine was able to follow his dream to help lead his team to the regional finals. Some coaches hate LL with the rules and dimensions, but it is still baseball. it isn't as if you are not practicing or developing.
Our boys made friends on any team or any sport they ever played. That isn't really the issue. I think there is a convenience factor here as well everyone has missed -- one hour a day in the car adds up over time. It means one hour more of driving but also one hour less of something else (homework, other sports, downtime, etc.). We had great advice (not from this site as we didn't find this site until recently) that we had competitive baseball locally and we did not need to drive far to get our second son to a different travel team when he was younger.
Indeed, LL does not have a monopoly on magical baseball memories, but if you have not ever been to Williamsport or Bristol or any other LL serious tournament, it really is once in a lifetime.