Since I have a bit of time in all three variants of the CRJ, I concur with the thoughts on the -200. Yes, it CAN do FL410, but as an operational matter, it's dumb to do it. Most of the time, FL370 was tough. I doubt I'll ever fly a -200 again.

It was uncommonly cold night at altitude the night I took the -900 to FL410. I think the MFD says -63C. The jet stream had dropped all the way down, so I had a tailwind eastbound, too. And it was choppy lower, thinking I could possibly climb out of it. Also, at a BOW of 49k, fuel at 16k, and only 5k in pax/bags, we were very light.

Even with all the stars seemingly aligned to climb higher, the FMS wouldn't allow a straight climb to 410. Perf Init kept saying, "Unable CRZ Altitude", so I was level at 390 for awhile. The bumps are why I'm flying at M.75.

I was confident that there was plenty of reserve power to not let the speed get on the backside of the lift/drag equation, until I could descend. Also, it still climbed solidly. It felt very solid, but, of course, the margins are thinner. It didn't seem like the autopilot was working any harder than normal.

One of my last flights at SkW, I hand flew the entire trip in a -700 from OAK to LAX. Climbed to 370, and it felt very solid. Of course, that doesn't mean 410 would be the same.