Pontius,
I was on a flight once when we did a go around. It turned out they hadn't got all three greens, so they did a wide circuit, came in and landed. Nothing major really, but you should have seen the commotion in the back. There was much wailing, gnashing of teeth and renting of garments (and the returning thereof to the store by Monday morning). It was a truly horrible sight and one I hope never to see again.
I thought the gear malfunction was no big deal, but the pax reaction scared the p1ss out of me.
It was possible equipment failure so they had to say something to get people in the mood for evac, but with a dead Captain, I'd really rather they didn't tell the pax if it would cause all that fuss.