All fair questions.
It wouldn’t have been faster at all, but going back to LAX to sit several hours for an almost red-eye was not something that I wanted to do having already flown from BUR. The plane was apparently Mx before I even left for PHX, but the app didn’t push that notification until a few minutes after I left. If they had pushed the notification sooner, then I wouldn’t have flown to PHX at all.
As for flying to YVR, PHX was an operational nightmare and people were being put on flights for Wednesday and Thursday. If I had a choice of flying someone that was reliably late or American Airlines, then I would go with the carrier that was reliably late. YVR is also home now, so I could’ve popped in, went to Richmond for dinner, popped back to the airport and left vs. sitting for hours on end at PHX/LAX.
As for my eventual replacement PHX > JFK flight, it wasn’t an option that was available to me the previous day. PHX > LAX > JFK was only offered.
Flying phx-yvr-jfk with a cx segment would actually be illegal. That would be cabotage. If AA flew Yvr-jfk you would be able to get away with it but the CX segment is a no go on a domestic itinerary.