I have to say the most shocking thing about this story is the 13 hr thing.
I mean the rest of it sucks (a lot) and if it was me I would feel exactly the same as the OP. However none of the rest of it is "by design." Which is to say that nobody at VA has sat down and does these things on purpose (i.e. loses bags or gives you buggy AVOD).
The 13 hr thing is something they have sat down and done on purpose. That is a horrible policy, and I have a VA flight coming up and I wasn't aware of this policy and have never seen it on their web-site.
So if I wasn't an avid FT reader I would have no idea; and even being aware of it it still annoys the heck out of me as in a lot of geographical locations it is impossible to check in 24 hrs early as you have no internet access.
I'm actually quite annoyed by this policy, it hasn't even impacted me but I still feel like writing them a snotty e-mail about it...
I might seriously have to take that into account whenever flying to anywhere where internet access is limited and or phone calls are hugely expensive (e.g. the USA).