He's talking about the pre-departure flight plan, not post-failure diversion routing. At that point it's got to be min ETE I suspect.
For what it's worth from a lowly GA driver, I concur with their decision to delay notification of the pax to TOD. Better 3 more hrs of sleep rather than 3 hrs of panic (for no good reason). Although I'm sure that would have generated some hefty air-phone bills in the meantime!