so the safest was to fly another 8 hrs? that comment is a bunch of nonsense.
Whether it's 8 hours or 1 hour makes little difference. The pilot weighs the alternatives against the symptoms.
I dare say that if you were to turnback every time that you had a similar symptom (to the pilot) then you would really have a lessening of safety.
The safety professional looks at the number of events tied to air-turn-backs and diversions against the number of events associated with thumps with no symptoms. What the cabin crew or passengers thought to themselves is of no relavance since they have no experience/training. However, there is always room for expert discussion of the procedures and training employed by any airline in general.
So is the process faulted or is this just second guessing or hindsight?