Excuse me?!!!! You have never been wrong on the rules? I think that you are being more than just a tad arrogant there. I have been wrong on rules from time to time, and so were my supervisors and managers, and various airlines' rates departments, despite being fully trained in interpreting them. If this was a consolidated ticket, there is no way on earth that you could have had a printout of the complete rules, seeing as they are governed by a confidential contract. No wholesaler in their right mind is going to print that out and give it to the passenger.
It is true that airport personel are sometimes insufficiently trained in these things, particularly when it comes to looking up contract fare information, however, one of the sure-fire ways of getting yourself nowhere is to stand there and tell them that they are wrong because you know better. Faced with that, even I wouldn't co-operate. In fact, I'd do my best to see to it that you didn''t get what you wanted. Thankfully, most airport agents are not like that. They usually call rates or the agency for clarification, and then go with that.
This isn't grounds to deem AC's commitment to customer service as non-existant, the way that you are doing. You didn't get things the way that you wanted, i.e. the agents did not bow down before you, so you are angry. Agents are people too. They may make mistakes, and they try not to. Are you expecting them to face a bad performance review, or other disciplinary actions, just to keep you happy? There are times when you have to understand their position too.