My guess from the flight deck; it was a frustrating flight (see the Mx delays and pax having to be off=loaded), then having smoke and fumes in the cockpit/cabin (over the big Pond) may have been doubly frustrating for them but they ... DID THE RIGHT THING ... and put the bird on the ground to ensure that their aircraft and their passengers were OK.
A crap event for everyone, except that all souls arrived, eventually, from Mexico City to Frankfurt.
Exactly. It's clear that the entire situation was unfortunate; it's entirely understandable that the incurred delay may be frustrating, inconvenient and annoying and that a diversion may well be distressing, however, it seems that the situation was dealt with safely.
Sounds like keeping the people on board was the correct thing to do. Clear evidence of fire is a no brainer, evacuate. Feel that the cause of smoke might be air conditioning? Well, statistics show that many people are injured during an evacuation down the slides (upper deck on a Jumbo?) and it would be a shame to break people's bones for the sake of a worn out oil seal. A judgement call that the Captain has to make at the time. Sounds to me like he got it right.
Precisely right.
Lufthansa personnel disappeared at Lajes: Well I'm guessing that, like just about every other airline crossing the Atlantic, Lufthansa doesn't have any people on the ground in the Azores.
Moreover, passenger handling arrangements in case of diversions (or any non-standard situation, particularly for a 747's number of pax) take TIME and a lot of COMMUNICATION to be made. Arrangements are not magically and instantly made by themselves, and there may not have been any information to immediately communicate to the passengers. This would particularly be the case, given the nature of the airfield.
In short; an unfortunate sequence of events (which make a good newspaper story), in which the safety and overall interests of passengers were appropriately addressed, given the circumstances.