Scheduled for a 3pm departure, at 2:30, we were notified the FAA bagged the plane for faulty exit lighting or something in the interior. Boarding was halted, waited 30 minutes and were told to change gates.

Got on that plane in spurts as there was lightning in the area and we couldn't use the jet bridge. I actually waited on the plane about 30 minutes before the second wave of people were allowed to board. Captain then comes over the intercom to announce that there was an issue with one of the rotors and then we were instructed to deplane. Waited 10 or so minutes to do this because of, again, the lightning issue.

The captain claimed that in 23 years of flying, he hasn't seen anything like this.

Now, we've waited on the third plane for another hour, with no solid end in sight. They claim that the lavatories needed to be cleaned, the plane cooled, and the catering supplies needed to be changed out.

Now I get that there are problems, delays and issues, but this has been kind of ridiculous. I'm typing from a miserably slow connection and it's painful to wait for page reloads, so I haven't done any searching. So, is this abnormal, and even more important - worth complaining about?