I was on a flight last night from MIA to DCA that had a missed landing in DCA due to weather. After circling around DCA for about ten minutes the pilot said we didn't have enough fuel to keep circling and they sent us to IAD. After taxiing for about 45 minutes we got refueled and then sent back over to DCA, arriving 2 hours late.

At first I was really angry at AA for not letting us disembark at IAD, and I was already contemplating the angry letter I wanted to send AA demanding some sort of compensation. In the end though, I realized that this was simply one of the problems with traveling and I am much happier having a cautious and professional airline, than a reckless one.

Obviously my situation is much different than OP's, for whom the fault was not an act of God but rather a result of AA's aging fleet. Perhaps he deserves some compensation (read the compensation thread on the AA forum), but in the end, it seems to me that the situation is just one of the many annoyances of traveling these days. If OP wants to pull his joker, he can probably get 10 to 15k miles out of the situation, and maybe that's worth it, but that's about it.