ID ticket required for all flights as passenger, even when they require you to be positioning crew, only company I know where you can jump seat around is Ryanair, although I know most Spanish carriers accept anyone with aircrew ID speaking Spanish who shows at the gate, the problem sometimes is to get to the gate.
Strictly speaking you cant use your airport ID to pass security except when you are operating,although there are ways round it
and to pass by pax channel you will need a boarding card, but anyway company require ticket, probably for insurance purposes.
The price of the ID ticket depends on destination, I paid less to BCN than my colleagues to CPH etc even though it was a much longer flight, purely because their airport taxes were higher.
Standbys are 1hr callout so you have to be in RIX. Days off are not always consecutive, but requests are normally honoured where possible and my ex colleagues commuting to Scandinavian destinations were getting home 3/4 times a month. Obviously it depends if you are commuting to somewhere with a daily/twice/thrice a day flight, and how much you want to spend each month on ID tickets, some guys were going home for even single days off, she must have been HOT
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Dash appears to be taking over Fokker routes and the shorter/thinner Boeing ones. On a sector of 60/90 mins the block time difference is negligible but the fuel burn sure is not.