The simple fact is that new pilots may have to (gasp!) work for a Part 135 outfit instead of going right to a Regional. Get your 500 hours of PIC in which will put you within 500 hours of Part 121 upgrade mins, get hired by a regional and upgrade under a year. Then get snatched up by a Legacy or whoever your forever airline will be. It may take you a little longer to get to a Regional but your time to your forever airline will be much shorter than even a few years ago.

So now instead of going to a Regional, getting 1000 hours and taking the first available upgrade. Then getting 1000 TPIC before becoming competitive to move on which would take a total of 4 to 6 years from Regional hire date, you'll have to do the above process which will take 3 to 5 years.

In other-words even though the process may be more convoluted, with this hiring market you will most likely get to your final destination of choice sooner than the historical average.