Interesting observations Wayward...no doubt about it. I guess my point is this: LIT was also at one time (relatively recently) projected to hit 2 million enplanements annually (4 million total), as it was close to 1.3 million in the late 1990's. The lesson here is that LOTS of things change and unanticipated factors come into play over that length of time (20 years). For LIT, those unanticipated changes were mostly tied up in the sunset of the Wright Amendment (impacting traffic through LIT to DAL...which also affected TUL, OKC, etc), as well as MEM losing its hub-status, turning into a more cost-competitive O&D with direct competition with LIT (and MEM is certainly a bigger gorilla in relation to LIT than TUL is to XNA). Furthermore, XNA is dominated by business travel, whose impact post-COVID is likely to be protracted given a complete rethink in corporate America about the need for face-face meetings. Conversely, leisure travel is likely to rebound quicker, benefiting LIT.
Regardless, I think an argument could be made that both LIT and XNA punch above their weight compared to respective, similar metros. Lets hope they both rebound quickly in 2021-2022!
p.s. SWA's logic about XNA, MSN (Madison) and TYS (Knoxville) is perplexing...they must know something we don't, and I suspect it has to do with the "cost" (siphoning off traffic from existing markets) outweighing the benefit (net gain in new market passengers) - at least for now.