AC is clearly written 2 hours or more

i have real experience with many airlines including: AC, UA, LH, W6, DL, OS, & more, i never had a problem changing to other flights, only now first time with AF.

My reading of your Air Canada quote ... must be different than yours.
For a situation as yours with AF, I think it would be difficult to improve by changing to a different flight. (It would be different if you had a connecting flight at JFK of course).
Could you give more details on your success with one of the Other airlines, in a similar situation as here, or close enough?

did you read the whole quote from AC?

i have real experience with delays of 1-2 hours, thats why it was very disappointing about AF, i have never been declined to change flights in such cases.

I also remember once with UA a 20 min. change, not affecting the connection & I was able to change to a direct flight.

So none of the mentionned airlines would have offer a refund for such delay.

Moreover, it is difficult to consider it as a single delay. The first delay was only one hour (as mentionned in the first post). This one was scheduled.
The second hour is apparently due to a mechanical issue and can't be predicted.

in some quotes its written also refunds & for the other you can find it in the link, all the airlines are offering refunds

regarding the delay, the second delay was 2 additional hours, but it arrived only 2:21 late.

OK I remain curious, if in the future you get a refund for a 2-3 hour delay (and for an otherwise non-refundable ticket), please remember this discussion and come here to tell us about it :)