They still exist and are actually something that have been improved recently [so the legislation is getting stronger, not weaker]. Of course those rules are for when are on a plane and stuck for 4 hours, not waiting in the airport or at home.

It's not the airlines who get to decide how many planes land in a day.

Airlines book tickets 365 days a year and the weather doesn't schedule in advance. We've all be in your friend's shoes, believe me, it sucks but that doesn't make it the airline's fault or responsibility in the least. If the airlines paid out for every stranded PAX to have a hotel [there is after all no way to enforce who is a visitor, who lives nearby and who just left their parent's house] the price of a ticket would have us all taking the train. That's just reality.

Truth is, as several others have pointed out, it costs the airlines insane amounts of money to cancel flights for weather. Sure you have the fog delays and cancellations in SFO and similar places that happen for just a few hours but usually these are delays that impact dozens if not hundreds of flights. It creates chaos in the system as flight crews don't make it to their next location (nor do the planes), baggage loaders and flight services still have to be paid, and thousands of people flood the call centers.

So again, every member of this site has been in a similar spot and knows the aggravation it causes. I'm in agreement that the handling of those delays can be poor [it can also be good] but beyond that you have to realize that while you want someone to blame, there's just the clouds.

This isn't a car, you can't just take off, realize it's worse than you thought and stop...