OP made a valid booking which EK were prepared to sell be it for cash or miles.
OP done something at the end of a long flight that thousands of people do all over the world every day by going to the toilet.
OP got on the first available bus to take him to the terminal - no one on this forum can disprove the OPs claim of no signage.
OP got stuck on his bus for 40 minutes due to an airside RTC through no fault of his own or the bus driver. Dubai airport police were controlling this.
OP did not see a gate for his connecting flight on the IFE before landing therefore had to find out on arrival the terminal. The IFE does not always display connecting flight information. I have had that on a couple of flights.

Where OP did go wrong was expecting to be put on the next flight when discovering he had missed his original flight. Most of us are aware that if the airline is going to be liable then it will generally be the next available flight with seats available.

There were risk factors due to tight but perfectly legal connection and in an ideal world, every airport would have enough contact gates where passengers can disembark directly into the terminal but we do not live in an ideal world so EK do the best they can with connecting passengers if they have to use an off terminal parking stand which can lead to a tight but legal connection even tighter when things go smoothly. There is no way of telling if this is going to happen when tickets are purchased.

With regards to the ‘other 10’, DXB has a labrynth of airside roads. Who’s to say that the buses leaving after the one the OP was on were not warned of the RTC and therefore took a different route to the terminal getting those 10 there in time?

So with that, I disagree that the bottom line was that OP made poor choices. More a victim of an unfortunate incident outwith the OPs control.

I will reiterate again that we are only hearing one side of the story and unless someone else comes onto the forum to either corroborate or denounce the OPs claims through fact, then it should be taken at face value without apportioning blame immediately on the OP from the word go.

Poor choices - No. A risk the OP was willing to take through the willingness of EK to sell the ticket - something he felt confident enough with, as do thousands of other travellers every day.

And once again I will point out that this is a generally friendly forum that could be doing without the sniping, apportioning blame from the off set and forensic dissection of posts to find the least bit of fault and continuous repetition of that point (in contravention of Flyertalk Rule 12.3-Disruptive or Repetitive Posting).

Any one one of us found to be in a similar situation could find emotions running high and posts may not be as clear as they could be.

But one thing I will agree on is that OP should move on from this and await any reply from EK Customer Services.

Peace & Love

S