Yea, CX's intentions with regional PEY are just fine and I like the product. but, as the poster above points out and I've experienced, CX's equipment swaps really mess things up and ultimately make unhappy customers.
Another problematic feature is routes like TPE and SIN, with multiple frequencies may only have a few PEY flights daily. Having a PEY ticket can end up being a disadvantage. Likewise, the PRESENCE of PEY randomly in the regional system can also be a big disadvantage even if you're trying to do something harmless like upfare a ticket. This has happened to me before, I can't upfare properly on the flight I want because PEY is on the first sector but not the next sector.
I really wish CX would either sell PEY on all flights to a destination or not. But this would mean CX, if they insist on having a regional J product, would have to install PEY on regional planes....and obviously make some serious upgrades to the soft product in regional J, which is approaching horrendous for many flights (a few are notably good and have obviously larger menus and budget like CX543, but most just suck. As do most KA routes at this point, which is a tragedy but CX has just gutted the soft product particularly catering.) I guess chalk this up in the keep dreaming category.
SIN is a real pain in the butt. Once last year I foolishly bought a round trip PEY to SIN....never again. On the day I wanted to return only like a 6:30am flight or something had PEY. So I upgraded to J to get a better flight timing, and haven't looked back. But that's the annoying thing...I found myself upfaring. Meanwhile if you buy Y and want to update, you're often stuck with a weird choice to upfare to PEY (which totally lacks flexibility due to lack of frequency) or J.
I guess "tip my cap" to CX on SIN because I fly J there now not PEY, but I damn well would fly PEY a lot more regionally if it was offered more consistently. What really sucks is the planes with PEY have longhaul J which is nice, whereas the crappy regional J planes lack PEY. If PEY were on the same page as regional J, objectively I would choose to sit in PEY not J (provided I wasn't in a middle seat).