He didn't land at the airport he was aiming for....so his decision process was flawed.
I bet they have tapes of them talking about how much it would have cost to delay the passengers.
Neither would he have if he had returned to LAX. Also MAN was his original alternate on the flight plan. It would have been more irresponsible to land at LAX. It would have required a two-hour to three-hour fuel dump to lighten the fuel load sufficiently for him to land -- so why not continue overland and use that time to assess the damage? If anything developed he could then land along the route. Nothing did, other than not getting the tailwind he was expecting, so he continued on.