Well as an installer I can definitely feel your pain, but to be fair here it is not the installers fault. We dont pick or choose our routes, someone does that generally has no clue where cities are or speed limits on roads or even distances between. To start things off yes, he should have called you the moment he knew he would be running behind and told you, Im running late, I do not have an exact time yet, but it will definitely be between 2:00-3:30, if that changes I will update you and I will give you a call when I am 30 minutes away.
Now With the NFLST Special and the Hurricane Clean up D* is generally backlogged 3-5 weeks, but Mr. Customer doesn't want to hear his install will be 1 month out, he wants it yesterday. Unfortunately in this situation D*'s CSR's back down and push a job closer, or pressure the install company's to push it closer. This causes the techs that eventually get the jobs to be overwhelmed. D* has Zero consideration for hold ups, problematic installs and drive times. Which comes down to you getting upset with the only face you see of D*, the Tech who is overworked and stressed trying his hardest to make his windows. So you threaten him with Belligerency, Cancels, Calls or even letters. Pissing him off even further.
To give you an idea, my day on Wednesday, I work in a very Rural Area.
8 Jobs..(times given are assuming all goes well)
AM (8-12)
3 HD Rec Install, 1 HDDVR (3 hours)
Service Call (30 minutes)
4 Standard With International Dish (3 hours)
HDDVR Upgrade with SWM5 Dish (1 hour)
PM (12-4)
Service Call (30 minutes)
3 Basic Rec (1.5 hours)
Wildblue Upgrade w/ HD Upgrade (4 hours)
Late (4-8)
2 HD, 1 HDDVR, 2 Standards (4 hours)
These don't even count the drive times.
Now I also had to get some extra equipment from our warehouse which is 2 hours from where I work. We don't get our Jobs till 6am, so I get to the warehouse at 8 am, spend an hour waiting for equipment and finally get to my first job around 11am... But I am the bad guy. I finished my last job at 11:45pm, not a single person was willing to reschedule, and I am not a prick enough to blow off a job on Line of sight or some other excuse, but boy did I get hammered by pretty much each and every customer that day. (and no I couldn't pass a job along to another tech because everyone else was in the same boat) Days like thsi have been pretty much normal for the last 2 months sans the sub midnight finish times. But I did keep in touch with each customer which I am sure was appreciated through all the bitching and moaning.
So yea if I were you OP I would have waited the hour, got my $100 discount and been smiling 3 hours later.