I actually understand exactly what original poster is talking about.
A solution would be to travel business class but I can't see the company concerned doing that.
When we position on an airline to X in uniform, the chances are that we're going to pick up another aircraft and do a few sectors and end up somewhere quite far away from X. If the bag that has been checked in gets lost, how on earth is the airline going to get it to us? Our plans change very quickly and to be without your bag for 5-6 days just isn't on.
We have to travel in uniform so if our bag is lost we can still work but tough luck regarding rest and the other days.
Even if the airline (and 95% of the time they do) get it right, to wait up to 30 min to collect the bag does impact on our ability to get to the aircraft to do our next flight.