There's a lot more to it than that though. It isn't just the "move up move on" crowd. At every regional there is a very powerful and influential "lifer" crowd that drives some level of the prevailing dysfunctionality. Despite over a decade of the "FFD working groups" or whatever they are called, there has been very little progress made in stopping the undercutting to get growth or even existing flying.

Yesterday's ASA/CMR vs SKYW/CHQ/ACA is today's PSA vs Envoy, et al ad nauseum. There's been some degree of mitigation from sporadic positive pattern bargaining due to the regional staffing crunch (aka the "pilot shortage") but even at its high water mark regionals will always benefit from getting another regional's flying and we're very much seeing that today. Yet there is never going to EVER be one seniority list.

So you're right in that if regional pilot groups stood their ground they would get raises. But they would also price their own model out of existance (good! but good luck getting them to because it only takes a few not willing to do that to ruin it for everyone) and some who stood their ground in the short term would be wiped out and replaced with an existing or new group.

The only real long term solution is to reduce the regional model through mainline pilot scope recapture. Anything else may see occasional gains, but they won't be sustainable by anyone that doesn't own the flying. Its a mainline problem that requires a mainline solution. Wether or not that happens remains to be seen.