So I got a letter from Delta with an apology and 2,500 bonus miles.
Since I recently converted 100,000 AmEx points to 150,000 Delta miles, I have to say I'm rather unimpressed by this compensation. I'd really rather they'd said,
"Stuff happens, we're sorry but we can't give you anything - we can't compensate everyone for everything."
The thing for me is that it was right ahead of my seat. I saw the reason for the delay, which was a) the maintenance crew didn't want to do what they had to to fix the problem b) the maintenance crew and the pilot got into a fight over who was going to "win" the encounter (I use quotes because no one won) and c) we ended up losing an hour to a maintenance shift change.
I'm open to opinions. Would you just let it drop, or would you follow up? And what's fair compensation for a brutally unnecessary 3.5 hour delay (not that this is straight up Delta's responsibility, but it also caused me to have to pay $40 for a cab ride I wouldn't otherwise have had to take).