I'd think long and hard about a routing through ORD .

I also dislike RJs (I take WN out of SJC on several routes just to avoid that). However, I will take the RJ SJC-LAX to connect to something, else. NYC-BOS is short enough that it's worth it, IMO, to take AE on that rather than backtracking all the way to ORD...and maybe actually making it into/out of there. Obviously a YMMV situation, but I wouldn't make too big a deal of the RJ.

Cheers.