There were a couple americans there that were planning to stay in the transit hotel (i was considering it) but they were not allowed past the transit desk and the hotel is inaccessible to this area. Yes if i were to make the mistake of transiting in india again i would probably get a visa done.
Update on the bag; it made it to BKK 6hours before i was departing home /day13 so i was able to pick it up at the airport as i left and only took about 30minutes. The bag was unopened and still secured and was flown to BKK by AirIndia.