I'm not privy to what went on behind the scenes as to the planning and conduct of the AAL flight, so I'll not comment on the validity of some of the comments here.
That said, compare and contrast the recording of the AAL2/JFK emergency with that of this one (just a day or two later) between COA9 and various EWR/N90 controllers as the 777 air interrupted back to EWR after a hydraulic issue.
COA9 edit.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage
Granted, the context of what was driving the emergency declaration was different, but from a human factors perspective, I think the difference in tone and tenor is interesting.