More room. The headroom on an ERJ-135 is like walking though a piece of drain tile - not bad if you are short, but it sucks for those over 6'. The pitch is the same at 31", but the width is 19" vs 17.3. Unfortunately, YMMV, as there are several variants of the Dash-8; even one with 'first class' (not on this route that I know of). Note that I did state on shorter routes - such as PIT-CLE or similar as these things are s-l-o-w (a bit over 300mph vs a bit over 500mph typical cruise speed).

Unless the person you emailed is in scheduling, they wouldn't really know anything. That person is probably just taking a look at the schedule and remarking on what you can already see for yourself.

Another possible explanation is that pmCO was much more aggressive in winter flying cutbacks than pmUA, and that may explain this January cutback. Further evidence of this is that sometime around the middle of Feb it appears that the day flights of LAX-CLE return to their usual 2 a day schedule.

CLE has been getting 757 since the merger. What's not to like?