You're right! Would actually be a pretty interesting trip getting the view from 5,000 feet the whole way. I might even trade my prized aisle seat for that!
Friends of mine were on a Midwest Express (back in the day) flight from Milwaukee to Boston when it had a decompression in the cabin. Even though they were very close to Boston when this happened, the crew went down to a very low altitude and returned all the way back the MKE that way.
Apparently the argument was that the plane could only be serviced in Milwaukee.
Back to the thread topic, a couple of times I've seen cracks in the glass that were only visible when at altitude, I reported them but I can't say with any confidence that AA looked at what I reported.