It's honorable to say don't take cheap freight, and we try not to either. But that cheap ass complimentary revenue does increase your bottom line at times if the outbound rates are priced right.
I had the same discussion with one of my owner ops after taking a cheap load. It was from Sk to northern NE. He dropped his rate per mile on the entire round by a few cents, but increased his revenue per day, and was online to his reload he was going to anyways.
It's a tough concept to grip, but there are times that cheap crap is worth it. If you want to work on the 'every mile stands alone' theory, you better drop your rate to western Canada by 1/2. More and more lanes seem to have that imbalance now. Cali, Denver, Texas, Western Canada...
It isn't right, but it is what it is....