Craic,
Sorry to hear that you were let down with your EK interview. If it makes you feel any better, I was also dissapointed by EK 3 years ago in Sydney.
The same kind of senario, except we all did get interviews. But every 30 mins or so, the recruiters were telling people to go. I have been to numorous interviews, and have always made it up to the final stage. I am now a FA with Qantaslink. But with EK, they did not want to know anything about me. I was out with the first cut. Like yourself, I witnessed many good future FA's that did not get a chance to shine.
Have you applied to other airlines?