1) IAD, but it seems that colgan will just stick a whole bunch of newhires where they need them at any given moment. My impression of skywest is that they send people from the same class all over.

2) Company says all newhires go to the saab. It sounds like you want to switch to a higher paying FO position. Here is the timeline: You will be seatlocked for 12 months following your date of hire. Assuming a vacancy bid comes out around that time, and it has a vacancy for the plane you want, at a base you could commute to, and you are actually able to hold it; then you would get it, wait for class, complete class and then be seatlocked for another 12 months before you could upgrade or 24 months before you could switch to any other FO position. So realistically you are looking at something like 18 months before you are in that higher paying jet with an easy commute to DTW or wherever. And then at least another 12 before you would be eligible to upgrade on any equipment.

3) Are you dead set on commuting and staying in CVG? If so then with skywest you have the one really easy commute to ORD and a lot of bases with single leg commutes but a lot with more than one leg to get there. At pinnacolaba ALL of the bases are single leg commutes for you except CRW which is a 3.5 hour drive. If you feel like moving then skywest has more places where you could live in base and do day trips/two day trips and have great quality of life. Also you MIGHT get the RJ right off the bat over there and then have the automatically higher pay in year two instead of having to do the dance here. It seems like aside from year one, their pay is equal or better than ours.

My opinion(not that it matters)
even a 1 leg commute sucks unless you live in a place you love and that makes it worth it to you. Take skywest and be willing to move out west, maybe not immediately, but within a year when you can take your pick of all the different places they have out there. Unless CVG or the east coast is really where you want to be then come fly the SAAB.