Whether an aircraft is held for connecting pax is a decision made by Operations and takes into account many factors. The presumption is that the aircraft is not held. Anything from weather to crew timing out, ATC issues and the possibility that there are pax with connections (or other obligations) on the other end is yet another factor. Bottom line is to never count on a flight being held for any period of time.

If you misconnect, you will be rebooked on the next available flight. I stress "available". When the delay was avoidable within the carrier's control, the COC provide for a hotel and meals as applicable. Here, I would think that a misconnect would have been avoidable because technicians could have fixed the hold overnight, but AS chose to let the problem linger.

It always pays to look at the implications of a misconnect. Are there more flights, is it a heavy travel time and so on. I would be wary of a 40-minute connect unless I had a Plan B. On that point, I would also have done the research on alternatives in advance and have those with me. If you ask for something reasonable, you are more likely to get what you want.