This isn't 1976. Yes, there are more flights, but there are also more people to move around and that is exacerbated at this time of year.
Having worked on the front line for several years in times of mass disruption, in this decade, during times of bad weather and various other reasons, I can assure you it's not easy to just accommodate 60 odd passengers be it at the airlines home base or an outstation. Those 60 odd passengers also seem to think they are the only people affected when in reality they are but a drop in the ocean. Of course EK knew they would misconnect but if there was physically no other flights to put them on or no hotels available then what can they do? The MAN flight was not the only affected flight, LON had fog that day, that's 6 loads of A380s with potentially disrupted passengers and that's before you even think about the LGW flights. Then you have other stations around the world feeding people into DXB many of which may be sending people late too. If you delay flights out of DXB to reasonably accommodate late inbound passengers then you also annoy a plane load of other passengers, many of whom may also have onward connections out of the next destination which EK would then be responsible for. You need to have a bit more of a sense of reality here. I fully sympathise with the passengers, but if there is nothing that can be done quickly then they also need to understand that. I sympathise more with the staff in the firing line though as it seems so many, even those in the industry are so quick to brand them as useless, hiding information or being deliberately difficult.