With the market pressures working downward on wages, if the airlines are allowed to continue in an unregulated manner, there is going to have to be a market pressure in order to change things. Right now, the public does not seem to differentiate between different carriers when it comes to safety and pilot experience.

Right now, the evidence seems to be that for whatever reason (automation, technology, dual cockpit, etc) having significant experience in an airplane does not seem to matter much when it comes to flying airliners. Maybe it is just that there are very few opportunities for true piloting skills to be needed, so accidents are just statistically avoided. Maybe an accident like colgan's rears its head only so rarely that it doesn't really matter if the pilots are so unskilled as to deal with adversity.

I believe that flying public (myself included) will continue to buy the cheapest ticket available with little care as to the name of the airline until they have a reason. Sadly, I don't believe there will be a change to that until there are significant issues with airline safety. Right now, accidents don't happen very often. Until airplanes are falling out of the sky often enough for people to take notice, there will be very little discussion about experience in the cockpit. Even if there is a rash of problems, it will still take a while for the flying public to understand the makeup of airline talent to understand that there is a significant difference in talent and experience in the commuter/regional world from the majors. Then they will have to start demanding that they are able to fly only on major airlines without some sort of codeshared commuter flight getting them to their big airplane.

My point is that the market doesn't see a need for experience in the cockpit right now. The sad truth is that it will take some real pain in order for people to demand it. Maybe it isn't needed. Maybe the price of flying is that the chance of crash is .001% higher than it was.