My opinion:
AE will be spun off to the stockholders. No one can afford to buy them outright, nor would anyone want to inherit such a large and expensive labor pool or a large fleet of aircraft with diminishing economics.
AE will strike a deal with AMR to maintain the current work load for 3-5 years. AE will be compensated per block hour or per departure at a reduced rate. This rate will be higher than the rate other regionals could fly at, but it will be a savings to AMR. Also, this will protect the continuity and quality of service for AMR. No one or even combination of regional carriers could assume the workload AE currently flies for years to come. That is a lot of aircraft and infrastructure to pull out of nowhere. After the 3-5 year period, AE will have the flying put out for bidding, but even then AMR can only afford to give away so much AE flying at a time. Just look at the cluster CAL created by spinning 44 aircraft lines from Xjet to CHQ. Any reduction in flying at Eagle will be slow and measured.
Some possible hiccups as far as the Eagle pilot group that I could forsee:
AE (once on its own) could sell off some assets, such as the Executive certificate, as a fund raiser. This is a clean way to offload aircraft and pilots at the same time. Or, AE could sell off a few aircraft at a time. Other nations are still trying RJs and used props. In all, I see eagle slowly becoming a pre-CHQ Xjet... a stand-alone company that eats off of one plate, just for a little less than before. Over time, it may see some of its flying auctioned off, but that is years down the road. As long as AMR gets the same Eagle product for a reduced cost (which can still be profitable for Eagle), then things will be pretty stable and unremarkable.