Hmmm, I see where you are coming from and agree with you in most aspects of your post, but in small/medium size regionals where the vast majority of flights have only one c/a I think that they work just as hard as Ops Controllers/Dispatchers if not harder. In my previous company most earned a good bit less than half the salary of Ops Controllers and at the end of the day if the s**t hits the fan they are at the very front line, 1 to deal with 36 screaming passengers, give me 3 AOG's a duff telex and 100M FG at LTN anyday !