I'm as human as the next person. I make mistakes every day. I wish I didn't.

I'm not going to stand in the way of this first officer's desire to return to flying.

In my 121 experiences, first officers are extremely busy with checklists from taxiing off the gate until entering the runway for take-off.

On a short taxi with the possibilities of having to complete "first flight of day" checklists, it's quite possible that the first time this fo looked up was a guick glance right to clear traffic and then again after the captain lined up for for takeoff.

Unless I'm mistaken, he did not physically line up the aircraft on the wrong runway, the captain did.

Take runway 20 & 16 at Richmond, VA put in pre-dawn or lower visibiity and I bet (in a simulator) that an instructor could task saturate a number of different crews and a small percentage of them would line-up incorrectly.

At least initially. Visual cues and crew experience would result in varied outcomes:

Back in Lexington - hi speed abort or increase thrust from flex to max, drop flaps to approach, launch into ground effect - was there enough space??

Chit-chat while the aircraft is in motion aside, I feel first officers can't be held responsible for the aircraft's movement while "heads down" running checklists.

Let the guy attempt to fly again.