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Well I feel that I might have a different point of view on this subject. I happen to fly a jombo-jet or the 747, myself for a living. It really isn't all that uncommon to continue on towards destination once one of the engines had to have been shut down. Offcourse it is very complicated to know all the information the pilots had when they made this decision, but I can guarantee you that the new regulation didn't have anything to do with making sure that they continued.
The regulation does cater for instances of delay that are technical or even weather realted, and is meant to counter the habit that a lot of the airlines have of 'overbooking'. They sell more chairs than the airplane has, to maximise profits and are counting on a certain number of passengers that have paid for their seat, but don't show up for whatever reason, connecting flight doesn't make it on time..... or they just don't show up..
For this airplane to have returned back to the airport of departure they would have had to circle for about an hour just to dump enough fuel to make them light enough for a landing.
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