Tinwald I don't particularly like FlyBe. I get really annoyed by their fare gouging booking system (I now see the admin fee/card fee is now around £13 per booking - great if you're in a family but a 250% increase for me flying solo). I have done a few sectors on Easyjet and it was ok (I can take my BA sized carry on as a carry on - with FlyBe it goes in the hold).
What concerns me as a frequent flyer on both business and leisure is that one big Airbus can carry twice as many as the Dash 8 and thus without an chunky increase in pax numbers fewer flights are needed for the same numbers, Ergo (it's like "treatise" - look it up in your book) frequency will fall. And it is frequency which the business travellers need. And we leisure pax don't really like hanging around Gatwick after rocking up from our holiday too late to catch the early flight, do we?
So if FlyBe throw a hissy fit that's a max of two flights a day to/from Gatwick then. Not good, I suggest. Back to the dark ages.
On the £200 per ticket front don't you remember paying £166 APEX or similar with Manx? 20 years ago? Ronaldsway is an expensive airport to operate into I'm told, and Gatwick is getting dearer. Fuel has gone up a bit too. OK if you book a decade ahead you may get a cheap ticket, but I reckon £200 a week in advance is probably about right.