Thanks...mostly I was venting...but i am surprised that people are clueless about their memberships...unless that guy just wanted a nice way to say no. Had I known, I might not have given up so easily.
While the $50 was marginal for 2 hours, the 2 has now turned into 4...but of course I couldn't have known that at the time. The original flight I tried to get on still hadn't left as of 45 min ago, the earlier AA flight cancelled, and I am now scheduled to get into PHL a bit before 3am. Given that there is still a plane at my gate, and they are setting up cots at the airport, I should count my blessings that it still looks like I will get home tonight.
And I did learn a valuable lesson about standby that I will consider for future trips until the merger is really complete.