I've lived in most parts of California as well as the midwest. To answer your question I think you have to recognize that what you think is worth it is completely relative. However with that said my entire family is from the midwest and the last remaining part is moving to California this year. Took about 100 years but they're all going to be gone and in CA or Texas now.
Midwest (for me you can include Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin)
Incredibly friendly people. I know that people will say that Chicago is not friendly but if you compare Chicago to Los Angeles they're much friendlier. It only gets better in other parts of the midwest.
Far cheaper. You can live in a castle in the midwest, literally, for the price of an upper middle class home in CA
Besides the circle in Chicago the traffic is much much better
It's super cold - colder than Stockholm
Too much snow
You are pretty much stuck indoors for 6 months and this leads to a relatively unhealthy lifestyle. You can go to the gym and that's about it. Way too many fat people.
It's flat and boring.
Life in the midwest pretty much consisted of work, school, strip malls, eating out, and movies. Not impressed at all. I would rate the quality of life here really low unless your sole purpose is to be a homebody.
California
Sacramento - Too hot during the summer and too cold during the winter but better than the midwest since it's not too expensive and you have the mountains and beach only a few hours away. Personally I don't recommend sacramento since you drive forever in traffic between strip malls and unless you go to the river, old town, or drive all the way to the mountains or bay it's pretty boring. Lots of people there commute all the way to the bay so you might find yourself in the car for 3-5 hours a day here. Even with a short commute you should expect 45 minutes one way. Plus when there's fog on the 80 it's a pretty dangerous freeway to drive on because of the up and down nature of the freeway going in and out of the fog. Luckily that's rare.
Los Angeles - Huge city. I'm going to completely ignore the inland empire since nobody should want to live there. I've lived on the beaches, in west LA, and as far south as Long Beach and I pretty much divide the city up into two crowds. You have the business side of people there to make lots of money and the artistic side with hollywood and aspiring actors and artists. The business side is dirty and although the salaries are high it is utterly soulless. One of the worst experiences of my life was working in this part of LA. The artistic side is friendly and nice but most people don't make it and unlike the midwest a lot of that friendliness might not be authentic but more meant to score contacts. Life in LA is pretty much a battle against traffic and quality of life. If you have a short commute and make $150,000 or more a year you'll enjoy LA. If not you will be unhappy. It really boils down to that. To get the short commute you will need to pay rather enormous amounts of money. If you have the money though it's pretty fun to live on the beach. People are vapid though and I had to leave since everything revolved around money, people are not very friendly, and if you want to go anywhere else you have to battle the freeways. If you're going to live in LA try to be around the Hollywood area. I think that might be your best bet. Better yet just don't go there unless you have a short term strategy of making hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions and then leaving.
San Diego - Awesome city. If I move back to the US it's going to be to San Diego or the Bay Area. I have lived, worked, and studied there and was very impressed. Unlike the rest of CA it is much more family oriented. Traffic is completely manageable as long as you don't have a shitty job. I had my work and school schedule organized so that I could skip all the high traffic times. They're pretty predictable. The only time I got hit was driving down the 5 during DelMar races on Wednesdays and it might have added 30 minutes to my commute. To do this in LA is impossible unless you can leave work at 5am and 2pm and don't have to drive on any of the major freeways. San Diego has multiple crowds and odds are you can find one you like. Weather wise you really can't beat San Diego. I have been all over the world and San Diego and only a few other select places in the world like parts of Portugal enjoy that level of amazing weather. If it's too hot you drive to the beach. Too cold you drive to El Cajon. The thing is that we're literally talking about the difference between 70 and 90 degrees. Not 110 and 35 degrees like in Sacramento.
Bay Area - It's enormous. Not as big as LA but not to be underestimated. The city, Marin, Wine Country, Silicon Valley, San Jose, East Bay, South Bay, etc. And I'm overlapping a bit. You want to stay the hell away from Oakland but besides that you can live pretty much wherever you want. You need to be able to afford it though. Alameda can't be that bad but living in the city with less than a few million in the bank is probably a bad idea. People here are friendly, but not as friendly as San Diego. You really need to find your niche though. Into the bohemian lifestyle? Tech world? Anything in between? You'll find it. Traffic is pretty horrible in the bay so be prepared. One thing I've noticed is that most people in CA like to say that their traffic isn't so bad. Truth is that it's pretty bad no matter where you are. The 101 is a parking lot so there goes the North Bay. The 580 is hit and miss but my god Berkeley please get your act together so there goes the East Bay. Driving through the city is a bit of luck. You might hit every red light. I've hit every green light a few times but it's rare. Even in the middle of the night coming home from a club I've hit every red light with empty streets. WTF!? It also rains a lot more in Northern CA. I know it's a drought right now but the last two days should be a reminder of what rain is really like up there. I remember it raining for something crazy like 3 months straight. Was nuts. You really better learn how to drive in milk thick fog, torrential rains, and with black ice. If you're into nature though the Bay Area and it's surroundings is hard to beat. It is stunning.
All in all I would do the Bay or San Diego. You need to be able to pull in a good salary though. Living in CA with less than say $75,000 a year can't be fun. You're going to be in your car for a lot of the day so you're going to want a nice car. Housing is expensive. Your $800 a month is a steal so I would say go for it and see what you think but at the end of the day you need to have a strategy to make 6 figures either alone or as a couple. If you're going to have kids you are going to need a ton of money for daycare and other costs. Health wise it's outstanding. I would often go bike riding and surfing on the beach everyday after work. Others snowboard or do yoga. Whatever floats your boat you will be healthy or you will not fit in there. Ok well there are fat people but why live in CA and be fat? That makes no sense and just screams unhealthy and lazy. Quality of life can be very high in CA but it can also be very low. If you don't make enough money that's obvious but if your commute is too long that is another big problem. Do the math. If you have a 3 hour commute and work a 9 hour day that's 12 hours away from home. That means you're going to have time to go to the gym for an hour, eat, and go to bed 5 days a week. Or not sleep. You're going to be swamped with things to catch up on during the weekends so at best you're going to have one day a week to have fun. Might be better to have a job somewhere else with a shorter commute and better hours. I for one don't think it's worth making more money only to spend it on more bills but not have time to enjoy myself.