Good points SR,
As we both have experienced the Ringleader playing his peer group is a pain but also very dangerous as the peer group will follow if they are aggrieved enough...
Therefore the Ringleader must be appeased and not provoked into providing more hassle and aggrevation out of his fellow already angry passengers...throwing him off (if he was a Ringleader) would have inflamed the fellow pax. even more...
Agreed there is potentially more to this story and was no doubt, as all 'disasters' are, a culmination of a number of errors in the handling of this delay over the proceeding events.