Offhand, I can't think of a better fix, to a more hated part of Section 23, than going to the bucket system vs. straight RAW scores. Along with other minor improvements, such as being able to high yellow only specific trips, it's actually made Reserve livable again.

If there is flying, the senior guy can't sit out the whole month at the "expense" of junior guys, not for long anyway, because the bucket system eventually catches up. The only exception occurs when we are very fat, and other pilots are very hungry, at which point there is a difference between guys that hold week-ends off, and those who don't. The difference isn't about the bucket system, since the senior guy in the lower bucket IS first to go. The difference is that the guys poach-swapping the open time don't have as great an appetite for week-end flying. Fix the cap, fix the PCS/SB/SWF issues, and the Reserve system works as intended. Hell, progression works as intended, hiring works as intended, the US government probably starts running a surplus, and SW pilots even stop butchering kittens.

If you're on Reserve, and you don't have week-ends off, you're the plug. It's the actions of the hungriest pilots that dry up ALL the open time during the week that help the guys above you, and make you feel, comparatively speaking, like the butt-plug. Just don't hate the senior half of Reserves for it. We're all first to go, in that lower bucket, with our shirts ironed, our bags neatly organized, and our lunchboxes packed. We anxiously check every day, but alas, we are not needed. We're like children lining up for schoolbuses that have been hijacked M-F by a bunch of prostitutes. We don't know what they need our buses for, and we're not allowed to ask. We just get shooed back inside every morning.