I can sympathize with your frustration, especially traveling with a small child. And to be honest, if during check-in the agent had done her job properly you would have been saved a TATL back-and-forth. As you noted she screwed up and it will cost NWA some coinage. Here's the problem: I think she screwed up in her duty to NWA, not you.

I'm going to disagree that NWA actually owes you any compensation. They may be liable to the Dutch government in this case, but I can't see how they would be liable to you. I'm being a bit facetious here, but does an operating airline also have responsibility to ensure that a diabetic is traveling with his insulin? Or that a traveler remembered his bank card so he can get cash at his final destination? Or that his immunizations are up-to-date when traveling to an endemic area?

I actually ran into problems once or twice while in Europe using my driver license and people would think day-month-year and not month-day-year. After that I always just used by passport for identification. I can see how easy it would be to overlook the European notation on your visa, but in the end I don't think this falls on NWA's shoulders.