I don't really think that they are thinking ahead of the FAA. The reduced rest trip was designed to be an exception to the flight schedule when changes take place. Comair's POI sat through a ground school last year and a number of pilots told him that Comair regularly schedule reduced rest trips a month in advance and apparently he really didn't like that.

So now Comair takes a stab at it's crews and throws in the bit about less productive trips. Clearly the company has succeeded again at making your life suck, but if they built the schedule the way they should, the productivity would actually increase. I guess that would require them to increase your QOL and of course we know that won't happen.