Some of my fav's are: Aurifil, Mettler, Gutterman and Superior. If I'm using batiks or other thin fabrics and for paper piecing I love Mettler 60wt!!
I know some others like Connecting thread but I dislike it, no ... hate it. WAY too much lint. But that's my machine (Janome 6600) and different machines like different threads.
You WILL find a lot of different opinions here! Thread is particular to the person, the machine, the needle, the tension, the fabric .... I suggest that you buy a spool of a commonly usable color (taupe, med grey) of each brand you are considering before doing what I did and buying 10 spools of something that I ended up hating and traded away here on QB.
I can't help you with Long Arm thread. I quilt on my Janome.