Ouch, Sam, have we had a bad day?
The points you made were, of course, correct. Did Lord's leadership style discourage his officers from sharing their thoughts with him? It would certainly seem so. Should those officers, knowing that the ship to the south firing socket signals, rockets, company signals, whatever, was not a small freighter but a large passenger liner, have hauled Lord out of his chart room and made him look for himself, even if their gut feelings that there was trouble ultimately proved wrong? You bet. If a large, glamorous passenger liner hadn't sunk just a few miles away killing almost 1,500 people and exposing the situation that existed on Lord's ship, would anybody care in the least about any of that? Not a chance. The case against Lord's officers is pretty clear. But if there was a problem there - with Lord's personality and leadership style, or his having spineless officers - I'm sure it began manifesting itself around him distinctly in advance of April 14-15. Quite a few things came together that morning.
Yes, Sam, they blew it. But what really could they have done - beyond what we've already mentioned - if they hadn't? The Inquiry claimed that, if they'd responded, they could have saved everybody on board the Titanic. Do you or anyone else still actually believe that?
I'm sorry if my posts often seem generalized, but I'm writing them on someone else's time, which makes spelling out every single cotton-pickin' detail rather difficult. '-)