I'm not criticising the pilots or airline in any way; & take your point about alerting pax. My sole point is that things were nowhere near as bad as we had been told.
During my professional, & general, lifetime this "sensational" approach has been steadily increasing- especially from the media - do we really have to adapt our ways to address this ? - I feel, regrettably (even accepting your point).
It just appears to me that everything is overdone nowadays.
Stiff upper lip, & all that !