To the OP... what are your priorities?

You'll make captain sooner at AA if you choose to, but you'll be relegated to commuting for the rest of your career. How important is that 4th stripe to you and how quickly? Also, do you care what you fly?

You'll have a great career at both airlines. I do think Southwest is on a much better financial footing than AA, but I don't think that matters nearly as much anymore as it used to. Not sure about AA, but many of us don't have much faith in our top management. While personally, I think our CEO is a very nice person who means well, I think he is in so far over his head and has absolutely zero leadership skills or experience, and any successful company can easily fall from grace very quickly in the hands of incompetent people.

Having said that, 2 hour drive on your own time vs. commute on theirs, not even in the same league. Take the drive every time. Depending on the base, you may even be able to commute by your own airplane if you have one. A number of us would do that as well, and our QOL is substantially better doing that, but some airports where we have bases are more accommodating to small plane than others.

When it's all said and done, commuting on your own timeframe vs. commuting on airline schedule's time is no contest. You could arrive at your base at 10, and just miss your last flight home if you're commuting on airlines vs. you can be home at midnight or even sooner commuting on your own time. Like I said, no contest.

And no, you really gotta try and find 5 legs a day. Even 4 are kinda far and few in between, and usually involve short legs. I just did one recently and it was 8.5 hours of duty time for 4 short legs.