Not ignorant at all, and the experienced 747-400 pilots are equally as frustrated as you that all the distilled experience of longhaul ops by expert 4 engine flyers is being overriden by this American desire that any engine failure should cause a diversion (because it has to in a 777!). We have armchair experts here who apparently know better than the worlds most experienced longhaul airline (BA) in how to conduct safe long range ops under a range of failure/weather/fuel shortage scenarios. According to their logic, if a B52 lost an engine (out of it's eight!), it should land at the nearest airfield! Some people bring to this discussion the benefit of their extensive twin/trijet ops- even trijet ops are subtely different.