So you recommend that the dudes with 1,500 hours and a wet ATP apply to the majors and skip the regionals? How well d'you think that'll work out for them?

Truth is, the kind of jobs you could once get flying ME aircraft, for hire, have largely gone the way of the dodo. Check carrying, auto part delivery...those jobs hardly exist anymore. Sure, there's Amflight, but the days when thousands of guys could go fly checks in a clapped-out San Antonio Sewer Pipe for the ME turbine time are long gone...

Like it or hate it, there are pretty much only 2 options these days to go from the right seat of a 172 to the right seat of a major. And that's the regionals.