I think those putting Jame's actions as an equivalent to Sully's are doing Sully a disservice. Sully had an instant to sum up his situation and make a decision. He also had a good F/O with him. James had from ToD and the opportunity to hold to formulate a plan of action. His decision was ultimately to ditch after IMHO squandering the opportunity to get it on the runway. We are yet to find out how effective the F/O was or whether her inputs were ignored.
If you want to look at an equivalent situation then compare this accident with the Virgin 737 landing in Mildura. That is the same scenario where both crews ended up with no fuel, no alternatives and no options but to work out how to get the aircraft onto the ground safely. The crew at Mildura were also dealing with FG and not a 500' cloud base. The Captain and F/O of the Mildura incident are deserving of more accolade's than they have received.
I do agree though that CASA should have made a decision on Jame's status well before now and not continually make him jump through arbitrary hoops.