yeah, there are a LOT of little nitty gritty things that make the difference. the things I listed are a few of them, there are many, many more. I probably couldn't even guess half of the stuff ASA or expressjet have in their contract because we at colgan have never had the benefit of having those rules. it's things like having a 12 hr duty day and getting paid only for block of 3 hrs, whereas at a place that has a duty rig or daily min credit you might get a few more hours of pay. if you want to know how those little things (soft credit) make a difference in the end, just check out that how much did you make thread... you will see guys making 40k on 2nd year FO pay or whatnot - those are the guys working at places like ASA. that is still more than most saab CA 2nd year pay even though they are FOs and they probably worked less too!
but that's just monetary. you might have a zillion dollars in the bank and not care. but the difference in work rules also results in better scheduling practices, etc etc etc that results in overall better Quality Of Life for the employee. for many, this is even more important than actual pay.