You obviously don't work for ACA/FlyI. Or Air Wisconsin. Or Expressjet. Or Comair. Or ASA. Or PSA/PDT. Or TSA. Or any other regional pilot group that has lost or is faced with losing flying to somebody willing to do it for less.

To get to the gist of your post, Comair is hamstrung in "competiting" because they are wholly-owned. In theory a WO should be preferred to a contract carrier because of operational control issues, but WOs are now viewed as a liability rather than an asset. Another thing hurting DAL & in turn Comair is the ridiculous amount of aircraft debt DAL has, mostly in the form of RJs. My understanding is DAL unloaded ASA's debt onto Skywest, but they still have the debt for Comair's aircraft. And lets not doubt for one second there are people in Delta management "making Comair pay" for the 2001 pilot strike that cost them BILLIONS of dollars.

Comair raised the figurative bar for every regional, and now they are getting the rug pulled out from under them...and as long as pilots are content making less than Comair's 2001 rates and work rules (so long as the upgrades continue...), there will continue to be a merry-go-round of contract carriers at the regional level.