A bang by itself doesn't mean a damaged engine. The Status messages that followed would have indicated that there may be a problem, but co-ordination with engineering, lack of pax reports, ground reports etc AND a NORMALLY functioning engine (parameters/thrust response) could reasonably be deduced by the crew as a continue decision.
A bang itself doesn't mean that it is safe to continue. Just because engineering says it is safe to continue, doesn't mean it is safe to continue. The fact that the engine is running fine right now, doesn't mean it will be running smoothly in 30 mins. It appears to me that some pilots are just
too much by the book, forget to think and put themselves and their pax into unnecessary risk.
Look at the picture of the damaged engine, was it safe to continue?