i am completely against the merger for most of the reasons airbus girl states. usair is bad news. if they do merge, they must stick with the HP name. in many markets, it may be a welcome newcomer.
as far as being region specific.... SW came in and took over all of FL, BWI, and lots of chi by way of midway. last i checked, it was no where near the SW.
look at NW. with hubs in dtw, mem, and msp, ams and nrt, how do they figure that name makes sense.