The new rules have been quite the steep learning curve at my airline.
In combination with the horrendous weather this past weekend there were over 5000 cancelled flights. It's a disaster. Flight crews and passengers stranded everywhere. My crew and I spent 8 days on the road unable to get home and that was not uncommon. The fact that you can no longer be extended in combination with the massive fines for on aircraft delays (UAL paid over $8million in fines in one weekend recently), the airlines just preemptively cancel flights now.
I have benefited from both the 30hr rest rule and the 10hr layover rule this week, thoroughly excellent. The change in emphasis on flight time limits to duty time limits has forced my company to make the schedules much more efficient. No more long sits between flights, and if you get delayed they call out a reserve and you go home with full pay instead of working for 16 hours.
As for commuters, yes this is still a huge problem but as mentioned earlier you can't move every time your base closes or shrinks, or you have to change bases to take a promotion or better aircraft. It seems to me that commuting should be positive space and included as part of the flight duty period but that's not likely.