It's some time since I used FlyBe: the last time, we were about 2 hours late from Paris for Bristol. The captain had an issue with the port engine, and I figured if she wasn't happy flying with it, neither was I. They were quite open about what the tech issue was, though.
Absolutely. You might occasionally get a bit of bull***t in the terminal, mainly due to lack of communication but once onboard the crews are nearly always liberal with the truth.