There's one other factor that came into play along with what was mentioned. The introduction of the regional jet in the 90's changed the game. Before that, smaller communities situated farther than a few hundred miles to a hub could only be served by a DC9 or a 737. Once the RJ came on line, airlines saw a way to replace that mainline high cost flying with cheaper contracted regional airlines who started ordering these new fancy jets that could fly those longer distances. As more regionals took on more rj's, so went the scope.
One of the more famous stories about this was back in 97 when the CAL pilots just finished negotiating their new contract. The agreement called for nothing more than 50 seats for a jet could be flown by a regional for their hub feed. They thought putting a 50 seat limit was strong enough language. What they didn't realize was there was no limit of jet aircraft on that agreement. The ink wasn't even dry on that new contract when Continental turned around and placed an order with Embraer for a whopping 275 regional jets (nothing larger than 50 seats of course). The CAL pilot negotiators said, "Gosh, we didn't think they were gonna order that many".
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