As far as I can tell, the only fail on United's part was not pulling the bags when passengers couldn't get a workable next flight. The rest seems par for the course. There's no "first in first out" rule for flight cancellations (can you imagine the chaos?).

Eagleriver, sorry your trip started out poorly (and welcome to FT!). Unfortunately if you're expecting an airline to act as a full service travel agent when irregular operations occur and make you alternative transport arrangements, that's not realistic.