Just keep in mind a lot of careers require you to pay your dues. Right now conditions are far less than ideal for airline pilots so things aren't good across the board. Those crappy airlines are still going to get staffed. If you can't get on anywhere else that may be your only option. If you get on with that ideal regional then you're lucky. A lot of indications point to the fact that the worst is over for this industry so upgrade times should be on the downhill soon.

FlyJSH, your 12-18 month upgrade expectation may have been realistic at the time you got hired but that is less than the industry average even in good times. You'd have been lucky to upgrade that quickly. Of course, 4 years used to be considered a long upgrade time at a regional! Your timing for employment just happened to be terrible. Did you ever consider Virgin America? It sounds like you have the time (I hear they're flexible on the PIC turbine) and they're still looking at upgrade times that would seem to meet your standards. Not to mention consistent growth over the next couple years (assuming all goes well). Of course, you'd have to move to NY or CA to avoid a commute. Being from Texas I can't imagine either of those sound too intriguing to you! Wouldn't blame you, I'm from CA.