I appreciate the historical knowledge. I did not know much of what you explained, but isn't this a political reason to not merge and not a business reason? Does a region have to go bankrupt before the writing is on the wall?
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Yes, but the landscape of inter regional and divisional politics has real interactions with the business decisions. What may be a good choice in strictly the business case may not be a very good choice politically. Divisional operations, and even the NARRC rules are very political, and not based on business decisions at all times.

Said another way, I think that the political situation on many levels has a significant impact on the range of business options available to each of the regions. We (the regions) cannot make business decisions in ignorance of the politics of the situation.

Regions are not businesses, they are clubs, and each is part of a larger club. And sometime that makes things weird.

"Why is life so hard? Oh, yea. There are people involved."