Rick--If I am not happy with what someone tells me from an airline, I have often called back and gotten a different result. Congrats for your perserverance.

However, I suspect your original problem with the connection was that it was less than a 'legal' international connection, since it is under an hour and a half. Hopefully you won't have any problem making your connection, as that is probably the reason why they wouldn't put you on the connection to begin with. Where are you connecting through?