I believe the only airport at which I have been stranded overnight on a connection is IAH on CO. I have however, spent pretty much an entire day at both SLC and ATL using DL.

Would it really have hurt DL so much to offer the OP a couple thousand Skymiles as an apology for him having missed his connection (whether or not this was DL's fault)?

I.e. "Sir, I'm very sorry you missed your connection. Although we do appreciate your concerns, please know that in the vast majority of cases a 40 minute connection is possible. In this instance, delays were caused by ATC and were outside of our control. As a token of our appreciation of you remaining a loyal customer, we'd like to offer you 2500 Skymiles. Again, please accept our sincere apologies and we hope to see you again on a DL flight."

Is this so hard to do?

We flew through ATL a while ago with a 39 minute connection (thanks to DL schedule changes) arrived 15 minutes late - mad dash to the gate, made it 12 minutes before departure - they were asking for vols... and told us that we lost our seats.

Blamed it on ATC - but in ATL, DL and ATC delays are common - so why put me on this (let me make it clear - I did not chose this - it was a 75 minute connection to start with... ) awful connection?

Would not provide hotel or compensation.

Write a detailed explaination of what happened. Don't let them lie to you. Keep them on subject.... Remain calm. And get something - I finally got an apology and DBC. What OP rcvd was how I was treated for the first few rounds of the battle of wills.

(actually - found this thread searching for minimum connection times in ATL because I was scheduled changed AGAIN into a tight connection - this time 41 minutes!!!)