Pete,
This last exchange should give you an insight into the world of gulfstream and similar programs.
Like I said earlier, it is a shortcut and would probably work out for you, just be prepared to deal with the kind of stigma that goes along with paying for a job at an airline. You've already seen some of the responses on this board. I was in ground school when I worked for ExpressJet and they were doing the introductions. There were two pilots in class from Gulfstream, and when they introduced themselves and said where they were from the instructor goes "oh, so you're one of those huh!" and moved on to the next guy. I guarantee you those two got absolutely no extra help from the other members of the class or from the teachers, but they did make it through training, and actually did make friends along the way.
In fact my sim partner the first time I trained on the CRJ was a gulfstream guy, who was in his forties and making a career change. The program worked out really well for him, he got his ratings quickly and moved onto a regional airline easily because of the multi engine 121 training he already had he did quite well in the sim.