Thank you Heathrow' for your quick response, just wondering if aircraft was being vectored in the middle of usual heavy traffic (as we all assume) or if perhaps had a pseudo-CDA of sorts from LAM @ FL90 on the day.....Not much info in the interim report regarding time/length of transition onto final and the ILS. You'd expect fuel flows to have been higher than those recorded with aircraft clean in the hold @ 90, if level flight ensued at some point with flap extended later on at lower altitudes.
By the way, I'm not reading too much into this, like all drivers who've been around the block, am having a hard time accepting some of the theories being put forward as intuitively, they go against the grain a bit.