I would argue with the qualifier respectable - the quality of tracks is atrocious and once the train leaves Lancaster is comes to a crawl. The same distance takes about 1.5 hrs on NEC.
While we mentioned NEC - I do not quite understand your argument about competition with airlines. Would not that mean that NEC prices should be lower rather than higher than on other rail lines? Moreover HIA aggressively competes for business, especially with BWI so one would think air competition should have a bigger impact on pricing on the slower Keystone service than the faster NEC. Methinks that the main factor is not competition but whatever the market can bear. And the NEC market can bear quite a bit, especially to get rid of the riff raff (of all colors) that you often find on the $20 bus lines.
Speaking of the riff raff - not long ago I was on a Greyhound bus heading for Harrisburg when a white redneck in a T-shirt with a big US eagle started making loud racist comments about passengers of Middle Eastern origins on the bus. This was going for some time and finally pissed me off so I told him off. He started talking back at which point I pulled my cell phone and told him to shut up or I will report him to the police for making terroristic threats. That had the desired effect and the asshole kept his muzzle shut for the rest of the trip. However, I would rather avoid such situations altogether and if I had a choice between the stinking $18 Greyhound service and, say, $40 Amtrak service I would not mind shelling $40, so I am pretty sure that corporate functionaries do not mind shelling $150 on the Acela service for the very same reason.
As far as the examples of transportation apartheid are concerned, I agree that Amtrak is not the best example. This is mainly the domain of commuter and city transit (e.g. Maryland MTA). The concept itself occurred to me while I visited South Africa and discovered that whites travel either by car or by plane, while trains carry almost exclusively black passengers. I quickly realized that a similar situation (together with land use patterns) exists in the US and then it dawned on my why the Botha regime decided to dismantle apartheid state voluntarily. Evidently, they learned from the US that they can maintain it by more informal means, such as land use or transportation, and avoid drawing unwanted negative publicity.
Finally, your comment about dismantling Amtrak. I have mixed feelings. I think that some of the lines make no sense (such as H'burg - Pittsburgh that you mentioned) and are maintained mainly for political reasons, which drains the resources from the entire system. I am not sure if the establishing of regional services was an attempt to stop that, and if so how successfully.
On the other hand, dismantling - or perhaps breaking up - Amtrak is usually equated with its privatization - which I would strongly oppose for obvious reasons - it would be a disaster as it has been elsewhere. If breaking up would entail ownership by publicly owned regional services (e.g. by regional transportation authorities) rather than the federal entity in Washington that would make more sense.
I also think that this whole reorganization issue is a canard to cover up the fact that the real reason of Amtrak ailments is gross underinvestment in infrastructure (tracks) due to political maneuvering of competing interests (short distance airlines and auto mfg). Every mode of transportation must be subsidized - no doubt. However, private airlines or auto makers are in a much better position to bribe beltway politicians err... provide political "contributions" than public authorities operating rail services or rail passengers can. It is all about pork and barrel, not about feasibility, efficiency or need. So with that in mind, who knows, perhaps privatizing Amtrak would put it in a better competitive position for bribing politicos err.. "lobbying" for more subsidies to build better infrastructure.
Wojtek