Chad,
I have almost 2000 hours in Jetstreams, so I may be able to answer some of your questions. I flew both the Jetstream 32 and 41 models for ACA a few years ago, as FO on the -41 and as Captain on both the -32 and -41.
The Jetstream 32 is a beast. It's very unpopular with passengers, as it's old, dirty, noisy, uncomfortable and generally smells bad. There is no toilet (although some airlines have this), so most pilots can give you some pretty gruesome 'bodily fluid stories'. It's freezing cold in the winter and unbearably hot in the Summer. I remember flying a short IAD-RIC flight one August when the cabin temp gauge never made it below 100 degrees F (the Air con was on full the whole way). Also there is no flight attendant.
From a pilot's point of view, things aren't much better. The cockpit is small and there's no space to put your flight bags. The passenger sitting in seat 1B is no further than 2 feet away from you and is practically in the cockpit. I never quite got used to someone looking over my shoulder every time that seat was occupied. The geniuses who ordered the plane for the airline I worked for clearly thought that the pilots who were going to fly it were so good that they didn't need an autopilot. This sounds fine if you come from a flying background where you never had an one, but when you are flying 8 legs a day in the NE, in some of the worst Wx you can imagine, with no autopilot, getting paid less than every other pilot you meet, you have a lot to complain about. Add this to the fact that you have to fight with pax to put their carry ons in the closet (which has doubled as a toilet on more than one occasion) and hear them complain that it's all your fault that they are not on a 757 (The best one I heard was "I guess you pilots aren't good enough to fly the big planes") and you begin to get the picture. The plane flies like a pig. There's no yaw damper, so the smallest bump will leave you juggling the controls for the next couple of minutes while you fight to get things stable again. Even the smallest power change requires you to re-trim all 3 axes. The engines (TPE331-12) rarely make the required torque on take off and are noisy as hell (I used to wear ear plugs under my David Calrks). Having said that, its a really solid plane, handles icing well and can take the abuse of numerous bad landings every day, which is just as well because its's one of the hardest planes I have ever known to land well.
The -41 is in another class altogether. It's a lot faster and light years ahead of the -32 in every respect. It has a nice 4 tube EFIS, which works very well with a FMS. The autopilot works beautifully and the yaw damper keeps things stable. There's a lav (well, a potty really, but it works) at the back of the plane and a flight attendant to take care of the rowdy passengers. It's also considerably quieter than the -32. The plane is very stable and lands well. (Like most planes, you touchdown in the -41 with idle power - try that in a J32 and you'll crash).
That's about it. From an airline management point of view, the -32 is great as it's very cheap to run and to acquire, but it's far more suited to island hopping in the Bahamas than flying some of United's most valued frequent fliers from IAD to JFK.
