Originally Posted by Stomper

Bluedriver you don’t fully yet understand the red/green system.

Here we are April 8th and there’s only 2 red days in LAS on the captain grid the rest of April. Tomorrow, Easter is one of them.
Initial open time (seniority based) long ago ended in mid-March. Daily open time (first come first served) continues throughout the month. Anyone who truly wanted DTZ has already achieved that and the grid is still almost completely green allowing nearly complete flexibility for anyone who needs to adjust their schedule.
However, open time pairings are mostly the less desirable trips but there is still churn as pilots drop and swap with open time or as sick calls and broken pairings due to a variety of reasons end up in open time.
If I spontaneously decided to DTZ today well into the bid month I still could.
Your above mentioned scenario of just the top few pilots able to take advantage of DTZ is inaccurate. I’m ~55% in base and I could DTZ today if desired.
So just because we can DTZ that does NOT mean the grid the remains red the rest of the month. Pilots who drop trips have those trips swap into by others who prefer those dropped trips creating this mixing and matching of trips throughout the month.
Equilibrium is the ultimate goal of the Red/Green system. Some pilots drop. Other pilots pick up.