Curious. Normally this scenario would be prompted by a suspicion of a tail strike and followed up with a pressurisation check. If there was no pressurisation problem, and ATC confirmed there was no sign of any ground impact, I wonder what prompted the level off and decision to return. I know that "when there's doubt there is no doubt", but there must be more to this. I was surprised by the initial call to burn off 6000kgs = 2.5 hours, but later it seems that was 600kgs.
Regarding performance and getting close to the end: shades of the Canadian A320 in Ireland?? They did not increase thrust as the far end was coming up fast. I wonder what happened here.
If there was no damage to a/c or ground was there even an 'incident'? If not we never learn anymore, except from an insider. No incident, no IAA.