savoia,
This has long ceased to be a thread exclusively about OPs post; as requested by the moderator, it is now dealing with concerns that are not dependent upon a single incident.
js0987,
Gulf weather is notoriously fickle. The strictest rules and the best technology can only go so far. For me - I always found a good rule to follow is always and I mean always have a place to run to.
It's not just Gulf weather - that applies to all offshore weather. Mostly, the weather reported by rigs is of reasonable quality; if there is a met. reporting station (AWOS or human) which is in the path of weather, the forecast improves; the forecasting of 'air mass' weather always has uncertainty unless it is based upon sufficient number of stations providing reports. (There are experimental systems fitted to fixed wing aircraft that collect and downlink met on routine flights - it has been established that this can improve forecasting by an order of magnitude.)
In some patches, a variation in the wind of 10º to 20º can result in widespread advection fog. Operators get to know the vagaries of the weather but no amount of forecasting or local knowledge provides a cast iron solution. The best solution is to remove en-route weather from the equation.
The number of incident/accidents could be reduced by a dispatch system which has real Operations Control; however, whichever way you cut it, the reduction of incidents/accidents will occur because the number of inappropriate flights will be reduced. Depending upon how well it is applied/managed, it will result in missed flights when the weather is marginal. If the marginal weather is extensive in area and time, eventually the rules will be bent and the bad practices will recur.
Launching of VFR flights offshore - where the regularity of the service is important - is anachronistic and inevitably lead to the type of incidents we are discussing. It is being done that way for historic reasons; if we were to start again, we would not do it that way.
The only way to beat en-route weather is
not to be subject to its vagaries; the best thing about IFR system is that they are dependent mainly upon the forecast at either end of a flight - and the ends are subject to quality control (or should be).