I can't believe I just read 5 pages of what might just be the actions of a slack / busy / inexperienced / 'not having a good day' ATC.
As a controller some days I know my "Service level" is better than others. Who doesn't go home occasionally thinking they didn't perform at 100%...
Needless to say, long haul aircraft arriving on the east coast rarely get a slowdown from me outside 200nm, would have to be stable 15-20+ minutes to warrant moving attention away from my holding/vectoring/sequencing to slow you down.
The main reason being is that I can control my sequence that is inbound via my feeder fix (spacing, arriving order, track shortening), and if I lock you in early and slow you down, the system continues to update your radar "estimate" for the feeder fix (noting you are now slower!), meaning you can actually drop behind traffic from another feeder fix that is not locked in! Talk about screwing you over!
We get by just fine nearly all of the time peoples.