Flown on both, the 170 is definately more "passenger friendly". But people never look at what plane they're flying in until it pulls up to the gate. I loved the look on peoples faces a couple days ago when they were walking outside in MEM to hop on a SKW flight to Salt Lake City....and it was a 900. They had that "So is this plane going to take us to the real plane?" look. Kinda funny...kinda sad...
In my opinion, the 170/190/700/900 is a mainline aircraft getting operated on mainline routes at regional wages by regional pilots. I wish up and down they only exsisted at mainline carriers but that is not too be.