As for Charlotte, I've lived there all 20 years of my life. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of it, for a couple of reasons:
1) I like colder weather. Charlotte has no winter, just a wet, 40 degree and grey period. I don't need arctic conditions, but its frustrating when its just above freezing and raining. Though I guess if you're from the Pacific NW, you can deal with that.
2) Sprawl. Charlotte is taking after Atlanta, with suburbs farther than the eye can see--takes 45 minutes to go from one end of Charlotte to the other. Though I must say, the downtown is absolutely exploding, in a good way. Im away at school right now, and even when I go back every other month or so, I can notice how fast downtown has grown. It's actually turning into a very nice place.
3) Charlotte itself has little in the ways of outdoor activities--there are 3 lakes (actually more like muddy, extremely overcrowded rivers) nearby, but I was spoiled and grew up going to visit family in Charleston (ocean; or nearby a real, i.e. round, clear water, sand bottomed lake) or camping in the mountains. There are good mountain bike trails there though.
4) Rather conservative politics. I'm pretty liberal, and some of the stuff I hear people say there irks me. Nothing bad, it's just a good-old-boys town, and shows it. Since you come from a pretty blue state, I gotta warn you
5) Never really liked the racing culture, with which Charlotte is obsessed. NASCAR is huge in Charlotte.
6) If you don't like humidity, you won't like Charlotte. Welcome to the south. It's not terribly bad, but it has more than a few days that make you feel like you're walking in a boiling swimming pool.
Good things about Charlotte:
1) Lots of growth and business. It's one of the banking centers of the country. Both Bank of America and Wachovia are based here, and between the two, they pretty much own the city and employ an extremely large number of Charlotteans. And like I said, the city is bursting at the seams in growth. I've worked at BofA for several years, my father works there, and I know many others that do, and its a pretty good place to work. This is by far the biggest problem I see with Asheville--I'm not sure it would be easy for ya'll to find professional jobs there.
2) Some good schools. Myers Park High School, a public school, was the 7th highest ranked high school in the country the year I graduated. Providence is also an extremely good school, and there are several good private schools around. UNC has a branch there too, with many professional and night classes, as does the community college, which has several branches around the city. Also, you have Chapel Hill, Duke, and Wake Forest, some of the best schools in the country, 2 hours a way if you need/want any sort of post-grad education.
3) Charlotte is almost equidistant from beaches (SC, near Charleston) and the mountains. Take your pick. Its 2.5 hours to the mountains, 3-3.5 to the beach.
Admittedly, I may be somewhat biased since I grew up there, and thus always sorta hated it (but mom, theres NOTHING to do here!), and also since I'm not quite of drinking age yet, so a lot of that sort of entertainment has been denied to me.