Obviously it wouldn't happen without a rehubbing. And that's admittedly a massive long-shot even if there was a regime change. But there is still a very UA loyal crowd in CLE and crazier things have happened.
I feel like under Bethune/Kellner the CLE business community would've been warned about a possible dehubbing before it was decided upon and things could have ended up differently.
CLE had the strongest O/D % in the system ; but the powers that be decided they wanted to kill the hub, I don't know what the real reason is (most likely they had to deal with the regional pilot shortage and needed a big block of 145's to kill), but from everything I've heard, the hub was performing well financially.
At the end of the day, the added competition on many routes and choice is a positive for the O/D flyers. And despite the loss of a number of small routes, the biggest ones still have nonstop service on a much higher % of mainline both on UA and OALs.
For me personally, the de-hub is a big loss, its a bigger pain in the butt to do YYZ-CLE, but then again, the drive isn't so bad when the weather is ok.