Notwithstanding all that
Having agonized about getting to Manchester a little short of gas and then having to achieve instant notoriety by admitting their fuel conundrum, one must still observe that it's all back-plottable to their earlier decision.
Notwithstanding the 3 engine climb gradient and the mountains East of LAX, those lofty heights aren't that tall that the crew couldn't have flown a standard SID, still out-climbed the mountains AND done their MAIN TROLLING and Ops HQ agonizations enroute whilst flying their best climb gradient.
Tooling around West of LAX at low-level with hefty power on the three good donks (for Maintrol's assessment) for in excess of 20 minutes before setting heading still adds up to a large tonnage of fuel wasted (that would have come in handy later).
Asserting otherwise with blusterful dismissal just denies the facts.