At the risk of sounding callous, nothing in this story sounds that bad. In fact, this overly-lengthy account may be more painful for the reader than the actual experience was for the writer.

Nobody was actually rude or ungracious to you. It sounds like the delay alert system was working well, providing you with updates and other options as things changed. At least part of the delay sounds like it was weather. Even I don't usually blame that on United.