The new flight time/duty time regulations that a joint FAA/union/management group have been working on since shortly after the Colgan crash are due to be promulgated this summer. Last year, Congress mandated the FAA to get this job done, and apparently the new Congress has not seen fit to countermand that edict. These rules will help with the sleep and fatigue issues, but they're not a panacea. It will take some time (some say as long as two years) before the new regs can actually be implemented, because contracts will need to be adjusted to conform to the new rules, and that itself will probably be something of a mess.

But you're right, Eagle pilots train at the same DFW schoolhouse as AA pilots. The standards are high, and some Eagle pilots don't even aspire to move on to mainline flying. Some of them actually retire from Eagle, which is unusual at other regionals. This is one reason Eagle's costs are relatively high: more pilots are well up the seniority list--and the payscale. Plus, it takes a good long time for a pilot to make captain at Eagle, sometimes as long as 7 or 8 years. Of course, this varies depending on lots of things, like economic conditions, fuel prices, etc. Time-to-captain at some other regionals has sometimes been what some would call uncomfortably short.