Yes, our trip home sucked...but you know what was *awesome*?
The kiddo (who's 9) and my nephew (who's 2.5) were freaking rock stars. They both were so well behaved and just rolled with everything with minimal whining/tears/etc. Those kids were dragged all over kingdom come. I was so proud of them.
Also, while I was going through my stuff in the baggage claim office, the kiddo just sat there with the rest of our stuff and kept telling me he loved me and that it was going to be OK. One of the ladies apologized directly to him regarding our dragged bag and he looked at her with his big blue eyes and said, "My cousins presents were in there!" (we bought my nieces mickey ears).
All in all, it wasn't SW's fault. They did the best they could. I'm glad they wrote me a check on the spot. It really went a long way towards me continuing to be a customer of theirs. The lades in the baggage office were very sweet and as helpful as could be.
Let's hope none of these shenanigans occur when we go to Vegas in November.
Re: Final thoughts...
The few times I've had problems with bags (Nico was there for one of them), the baggage people were pretty cool.
I'm biased since my dad is a SW pilot, but when I traveled they were still my favorite airline. I had my bag lost once with them and like they did with you, they wrote me a check on the spot for the clothes and tolietries I needed to purchase, plus they actually gave me a pretty nice tolietry pack for not having my bag.