I'm sorry you were parted from your bag and hope you were or will be eventually reunited with it. It's not to make excuses for Delta but let me relate a personal experience that I think will shed some light on your situation and how things work at a small outstation like Halifax (YHZ) NS. Halifax has 3 arrivals/departures per day. One to/from Boston, JFK, and Cincinnati.
I sometimes fly into/out of a small airport near New York City, Stewart International (SWF) in Newburgh, NY which has 3 flights to/from Atlanta daily. There is ONE employee who is the ticket counter/checkin agent, gate agent, and baggage agent. He arrives at the ticket counter 90 minutes before each flight is scheduled to depart. At 30 minutes before departure (the cutoff time for checkin) he closes the front counter and goes to the gate. He meets the inbound flight and deplanes the passengers, then boards the passengers for the outbound flight. He then goes back to the front to deal with any baggage issues and when all bags are claimed or reports of any mis-routed bags, if any, are filed he's off the clock until the front counter re-opens for the next flight.
I know this since I was late for my flight one afternoon and found the ticket counter closed. I was told by an agent for Northwest next to the Delta counter that he would return after he finished at the gate so I waited and was re-booked to the later flight when he returned to check that all the bags had been claimed. I had nearly four hours to kill before the next flight and as I was walking around the terminal I saw the agent, without his Delta vest and tie on and wearing a baseball cap and smock, running a carpet cleaner! Yes, he worked part-time for Delta and in-between flights was employed by the airport cleaning floors and emptying trash bins! He was a really nice guy and I chatted with him on his break. Apparently all small outstations are run this way. He's paid from 90 minutes prior to about 30 minutes after each flight so if there are no delays or issues with arriving passengers to deal with he clocks about 6 hours per day working for elta. Not a full-time job so he supplements his income by working for the airport.
So as you can see, unlike larger airports with a dedicated baggage office and agent, there is rarely anyone there to answer the phone and when there is someone there they are almost always busy dealing with their various job functions and ensuring on-time departures. These folks work hard and serve multi-functions for rlatively little pay. As a less than full-time employee I doubt he even gets the same benefits, or pays more for the same benefits, that a full-time employee does.
I know this doesn't excuse how Delta put you off in your situation. I am aware that there are other ways (teletype and e-mail) to communicate with these outstations and you should have at least been told that a message was sent and that they were awaiting a reply.
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