If you are young, or have no management/leadership experience, this is a very valid consideration. Working as a CFI teaches you some fundamental points about how to be be a captain someday.

While I agree that it is better to hold a CFI AND have some CFI experience, the rating alone will help hone your flying skills to some degree and your knowledge to a greater degree.

Regional interviews are oriented towards their target audience...which is 1000+ hour CFI's. If you are a part 91 commercial-piston pilot you will be at a disadvantage at an interview when they get technical. Remember all the miscellaneous aviation knowledge and regs that you had to talk about on your commercial checkride, and have long since forgotten? CFI's deal with that stuff every day, and they know it by heart...regional interviewers will expect you to also.

You don't need a saint-like devotion to your students to do some CFI work...you just need to work hard at it while you are doing it and try to find a way to enjoy.

Some people say they don't want to CFI because they don't like dealing with people, mentoring, or teaching...those folks should look for career single-pilot jobs, preferably not involving passengers. Airline captains have to mentor and teach new FO's, provide leadership to the entire crew, deal with irate pax, etc.

With all that said, ME time is going to be the key when hiring resumes. After the last downturn, it took 350-500 ME hours to get an interview. There were plenty of 1500+ hours ASEL pilots, so they used ME to thin the herd. Also the aviation safety bills in congress require airlines to "emphasize ME experience" when making hiring decisions. The bill does not set forth a minimum, but if it passes it will most likely cause airlines to raise their ME requirements. I don't think you will ever see another airline pilot with 50 (or 15 ) hours AMEL.