Not every regional allows 1500TT pilots to become Part 121 PICs and thus they hire Street Captains. I believe Mesaba, Colgan and Chautauqua did this at some point in the last few years, Colgan I believe was most recent. This is a guess but I don't think its necessarily a "we're being extra safe" but more like insurance won't cover us. Dent a few airplanes and you'll see an airline react pretty quick as insurance becomes an issue. Maybe someone with a plethora of insurance experience that posts a good bit around here might know more or if I'm guessing right.

Anyways, Street Captains are hired at the bottom of the seniority list but they're PICs. FO's currently on the list will once they upgrade be senior Captains to them. Not exactly wise or necessarily the safest thing to do but if you need some PIC time it doesn't hurt to jump ship from a stagnant large regional to Dash 8-400 CA at Colgan to help get the magic 1000TPIC. If you increase CA minimums you'll increase the probability of Street Captains and thus I think you have to automatically also require a minimum amount of SIC time at said airline prior to upgrade to the PIC position you were hired into.

But again, not the wisest or safest idea to go from 0 to CA at any airline. I flew with a Comair CA turned Continental FO turned flowback CA at XJT and he said it sucked being "hired" to be in charge of an airplane at an airline operation you never have seen before.

As far as I am concerned, increase scope before you create minimum hour requirements for any position. It'll solve most of the issues and achieve most of the objectives without creating more problems. But if you want to do something industry wide then start with FAA min rest requirements to at least Part 135 mins, 10 hours between flying.

Also, if you want to do something constructive in the name of safety then require the FAA to make training as easy for regional pilots with more sim time, checkrides split into two, etc. as it is for major airline pilots. RJ pilots would welcome it with open arms. I agree with others who posted here, training and strict standardization rules trump experience in the Part 121 world.