If he had declared a fuel related emergency much much earlier, maybe some lateral thinking by the guy on the ground, and those in the air may have come up with some better ideas a lot earlier.
Instead he hoped he could get it on the ground and say nothing, all covered up by a large fuel uplift......which may have just been buried in paperwork.
It was clearly not a well briefed ditching and I still believe there is a good chance the gear was down, he seems to have been a bit resistent to telling the truth about things from before the flames went out, so why stop there.
CVR and FDR's will be very interesting indeed.