Thanks. Not the answers I was hoping for, but realistic. I was gambling a bit on the early morning flights being timely out of DCA. They tend to be. But there's admittedly no margin for error on those connections, even before tossing in the dismal performance of AA's wheelchair subcontractors on transfers.

My wheelchair transfer at DFW last month didn't go well, even though theorectically it should have, as against all odds my DFW-DCA flight ended up departing from the same terminal as arriving international flight AKL-DFW.