A few years ago, when it snowed in Houston for the first time in years, effectively reducing the departures for the entire airport to one every 5-10 minutes as they could only de-ice one aircraft at a time, we found ourselves stuck on the ramp, having not moved since we pushed, for nearly 3 hours.
Our gate was still open. We spoke with some of our company aircraft who had actually made it as far as a taxiway, and we estimated that the soonest we could be to the de-ice pad was another 2 hours, but more realistically we were looking at 3-4 more hours before takeoff. Dispatch would not cancel.
We spoke with the passengers, letting them know that we either go back to the gate now, while we have a chance, or we could be stuck on the taxiways for several hours yet. Once we leave the gate area, we can't go back. We can go to the gate, let off whoever wants to get off, and take whoever wants to stay.
All of them elected to... STAY ON THE AIRCRAFT!?!?!?!
Passengers bill of rights my ass. All passengers want is to be in in control, and when they are not, they get angry. Unfortunately, they don't control the weather, airport, airspace, gates, etc., and this makes them angry. I don't think anything we do as airlines will ever fix that.