Contempt of court is contempt of court - I see Twitter waiting until the last day as a philosophical stand while their hands were otherwise tied. I don't fault them here.

Twitter is still supporting the users; Twitter waited until the last possible day to turn in the records and in addition has protected the tweets from being used until after an appeal process.

No; Twitter originally argued that privacy laws were being violated by this request. They should have stuck to this position and contested any contempt fines. Someone has to be willing to get involved and challenge this if privacy law is indeed being violated by the district attorney or other parties in these cases.

It seems to me that the appeal is already a form of contest.

Appeals aren't over. Miranda got his conviction overturned because his civil rights were denied. The law moves slow, but it does move.