$27k is being well paid? My father has a GED, no college and earns over $60k driving a big dump truck.
I know a training captain at a 135 in the Southwest that flies c404 and c310. He said they can't find pilots. As you said on this thread. Night IFR mins far exceed what the regionals require, some currently "close to 500TT".
I agree, I don't know of too many pilots that would fly an old prop airplane at night, by themselves when they could be in a jet.
Flight schools aren't pumping out new pilots like they used to either. Pan Am is full of Chinese now, very few Americans left getting into aviation and SkyWest announced they will be at PanAm next week to recruit more pilots. It should be interesting if this trend continues for another 5 years