If Continental can work for you thats great in the long run.By all means bank away from here on in.
But if I were you I would leave those AA miles parked right where they are and not pay a silly amount of dollars to make all those transfers to end up with 5k which is next to nothing in the mileage world .
When you get done with the Diners fee and all the penalties imposed you will have effectively lost all the miles full value.10k is worth approx 200 dollars and up IMO.
With 5 K Continental miles minus all the fees you will be paying you will almost be minus 200 dollars

Instead open a AA Citibank business Master Card and earn 15 k and save it for a rainy day.
You will then be sitting on a free ticket that you can actually redeem.
Then go gift it to a friend.Then have the friend gift you one on Continental. Or save them for a rainy day.The bottom line is you have valuable miles in one of the best Domestic Airline redemption programs in the industry.
I urge you to keep banking those AA miles and turn it into a nice business or first class ticket down the road on Qantas,British Airways,or Cathay Pacific
I am going First Class on BA to Cape Town from London this summer thanks to AA.
AA continues to bring me world class opportunities and I usually get the seats.
Only a few programs IMO can beat their record.
And they are International based.

FYI There are some AA flights that are very nice even if your flight didn't happen to be so.
Sorry to hear about your experience
Good luck in your choice and thanks for your post on Flyertalk