Looking at the report, it seems well balanced, and covers all the avenues that were discussed here at great length.
To me, the significant aspect of the report is that the bottom line recommendations about a previously unreported fault on the FDR have generated a ratio of 3 to 1 recommendations in comparison to the reported incident.
In other words, so that there's no confusion, it seems to me that the people responsible for producing the report were a lot more concerned about the FDR failure than they were about the engine failure and the subseqeuent continued operation of the flight. That should tell us something.
Maybe at last, this thread will now be allowed to quietly subside back into the background noise.
One set of statistics may be worth quoting
The engine manufacturer provided statistics showing
that, from 1989 to May 2005, there had been 389 surge
events from all causes for the RB211 524G2 and 524G2‑T
engines. The worldwide fleet size was 603 with a
total engine operating time of 26.4 x 10
6 hours. Of the
389 surge events, 57 resulted in an abandoned takeoff
and 65 resulted in an IFSD; of these 54 were subsequently
removed due to damage. The manufacturer considered
that prolonged windmilling may have caused additional
damage in two of the cases, both LP compressor fan
blade failures, but in both cases a diversion had been
carried out due to significant vibration.
26.4 x 10 to the 6th Hours. That's a LOT of hours, and in all of that time, only 2 engines have received additional damage, and in both cases, there were indications of significant vibration, so an appropriate response was made. When the cold light of day facts are reviewed in the way that this report does it, I suggest that there was no case here to be getting excited about in the first place, and as has been suggested, if they'd got to LHR without the "drama" of the diversion and Mayday, this "incident" would not have even got a mention, let alone the hysteria it provoked at the time.