Many years ago, Coats & Clarks was the "best" thread I could get...those quilts are still going strong. One of them was for my daughter when she was born, has been washed too many times to count, and is still in great condition after almost 40 years.
As for quilting, with all the choices we have now, I think you'll find that machine quilting or machine embroidery threads will work well for quilting and give you less trouble while you're quilting. I wouldn't use general purpose thread for FMQ with all the beautiful quilting thread available now.