[stephen]

It sounds like you ad a miserable time in difficult circumstances, sorry to hear about it. But I wonder why a seasoned traveler would use Orbitz or any of these third party sites. If anything goes wrong the airline will be much less likely to help you and you will likely be passed back and forth between airline and agent. Always better to use a real travel agent or book on the airline's website and these days it is never in my experience even any cheaper to use Orbitz or Expeida etc.
It is a very strange reply you quote from Delta -"I repent (!) of the mishandling","I understand your feelings of deception (?)" Was this written from an non-English-speaking office?