With my over 20 years of experience, as an area/approach/tower controller both in the militairy and civil side, I still consider ATC to be a part of ATS. So in my opinion still a
service, but with extensive responsibilities. It is not without a reason that the required standards for controllers, as for pilots, are very high (at least in The Netherlands).
There are two things that I notice when following the discussion. First, and I am not the first one to recognize this, not all the facts of this incident are known. So this makes it very difficult to built an opinion, and especially to judge
the people involved.
Secondly, and many incidents and arguments in all kinds of variety start by this, a lack of communication. The pilot omits to state the nature of his emergency and the controller omits to ask. Now again, not all the facts are known, so it could be that the crew is too busy or stressed to state the nature of the emergency and the controller is too busy (according to the RT and probably additional coordination) organizing all the the other flights that are affected by the emergency of the AA flight.
Nevertheless it is a fact that the controller does not know the nature of the emergency and is thereby unable to provide optimal assistance. The lesson I learned (again) from this incident, keep communicating
.