A college friend of mine once told me "I'd rather work at Safeway in Denver than fly a Gulfstream in Tennessee" when he was only about a year into working at Skywest. And he had a VERY strong lead on a G-IV gig...but seeing as though he's at United now, I'd say it worked out just fine.
I'd rather dig ditches in Inditucky than take a job flying a large-cabin bizjet on either coast. That is MY choice, for MY reasons, and MY reasons alone. And we all make choices and decisions for our own reasons. As such, I would never fault somebody wanting to live in the PNW wanting to get on at Horizon or somebody that wants to be Rockies area wanting to get on at Skywest.
We roll the dice on a company and even with all the due diligance in the world prior to that, we ultimately put out career fates in the hands of Ernie Gann's "numbers".