remember one delay where the pilot was brutally honest about a piece of the airframe not working, and said it didn't really matter anyway, it just added drag, and they could just land a few hundred miles early if looked like they didn't have the fuel to get to the destination. And if they thought they did have enough fuel when half way, they they would just carry on and go for it.
Even worse, in my mind, was they were talking about the horizontal stabiliser, and not long earlier an aircraft had gone into the sea off LA because a similar piece of the aircraft started to misbehave and added a little too much drag.
Too much information one thought, sometimes it's better to be economical with the truth and blame ATC.