Consultants are isolated and alienated from "corporate." And "corporate" is a good way to describe the culture post merger. Pre-merger, the culture was more fun, scrappy, and "get it done" than it is now.
Consultant bonuses are big carrots, but they can easily suck you in and erode work-life balance. Training, bench time, and time promoting yourself (like conference talks) all count against your bonus, which is a big shame. Consultants are actually invented to stagnate.
HR seems to change processes and policies weekly. Then, when you're not expecting it, they'll do things like reneg on the PTO buyout, or push annual pay raises out an entire quarter.
If you're actually in a consulting practice, your competitors will view your team as "just a VAR" since most revenue comes from pushing security products.