Great post, TOGA. The "connection carrier" and code share situation in this industry amounts to a "bait and switch" tactic. It is absolutely ridiculous that this is allowed to continue. The only good thing I see is that the frequent fliers are starting to catch on and book away from these flights. Note: that's actually a bad thing for us in the short term but maybe it will get the attention of the idiot bean counters we have running the airlines these days and they will fix the problem. In the meantime, companies like SWA and AirTran will continue to benefit from the customers we are driving away.
I also agree with your comments on training. The training I experienced at both American Eagle and TWA was superior to the training I experienced as a new hire at Delta and far superior to our current training. Airline management can rationalize it all they want, but the bottom line is that they are reducing safety margins to save costs.