I suggest that you take the 5 hour connection despite little to do at AEP.
The seating does allow one to take a nap across a group of seats. The only saving grace for your strategy is that you are coming in on LAN and out on AR which has a tendency for irregular operations.

AR probably will not be flexible unless they have seats and you pay a change fee. Whether that can be done in the secure area is a question I cannot answer. I recall that last year the change fee was something in the $25US range per person.