Yesterday's UA1559 faced weight restrictions because of high heat and the short runway in Orange County.

That is totally understandable, and ultimately, the result was a 3-hour delay for a nonstop flight. Not great, but also not a major issue. However, the sequence of events that got us there were very poorly handled.

1. They offered $1500 for 10 people to get off. Obviously, there were more than enough takers.
2. A contemporaneous minor leak repair apparently resulted in the temperature increasing enough that the new weight was still not sufficient.
3. They would not offer any additional VDB. Unloading fuel and a refueling stop in MCI were the solution.
4. People began to self-unload. Many left their items on the plane, which obviously led to a security issue requiring everyone to get off.
5. After reloading, scenarios involving fuel stops in MCI, TUL, or no fuel stop were studied, depending on the number of people who got back on.
6. Enough people found other options that no alternate fuel plans were required and we flew nonstop to EWR.

I have several questions for those with more knowledge and expertise.

1. The heat was forecast for days, and this wasn't even the first day at those temperatures. Surely at least one previous day's SNA-EWR also faced this possibility? Why weren't there more proactive VDB offers? I often get "we may need volunteers" messages on check-in for overbooked flights; why was something like that not possible here?
2. If $15k was the VDB cap, why start so high if there was a risk 10 people wouldn't be enough? People were rushing forward for $1500; I'm sure a lower number would have met similar response.
3. Why not consider IDB? Is this more costly than unloading fuel and scheduling a fuel stop?
4. As MCI / TUL / no fuel stop options were studied, United's flight status tools were updating everyone with texts and emails. This led to much confusion, exasperation, and borderline anger among the passengers, which made things difficult for the flight attendants. I appreciate United's timely and informative status updates, but why isn't there some way to disable them while various flight options are being examined? A few passengers were repeatedly coming forward to confront the FA's; nothing got ugly, but it could have.
5. After the decision was made, there was a further delay loading the flight plan. The pilot explained that the frequency does not have much bandwidth and the system had to churn through all the various proposals. I don't know anything about these systems, but as above, would it not be possible to "freeze" updates while studying various options and only send out the final one?