Firstly, as i far as i am concerend what intersection to take is always the commander's decision/responsibility (assuming that atc allow him/her to choose) Ops will never ever interfere. They don't know and don't care.
2) unless you're sat in the front with the performance books and all the rest of the information in front of you, you have no real idea what's happening. and can not judge or question the flight deck crew's decisions
3) as regard to tailwind. In my company the standard is to take no credit whatsoever for headwind and we'll take worst case scenario for tailwind if there is one (up to 10 knots). If atc will allow us to take offf via the most expedicious route (depending on inbounds) we'll take it. Some airports insist on you landing on the preferential runway up to a 10 knot tailwind. A perfect example that i'm familiar with is Ibiza. They want you to land on 24 up to a 10 knot tailwind and only then will you go on to 06, and it's perfectly safe.
Basically irrespective of what you felt was a problem, the departure would have been completely safe. Every single pilot i have ever flown with is extremely conservtive when it comes to safety. Even with the performance charts we have, we'll build some fat into the calculations and take the worst case scenario.
Understand balanced field and you'll really realise that the departure was not unsafe.