I (the TD) gave notice to all players around 2am with 42 remaining that I intended to play down to 27, or til 4am. I expected that we would get to 27 players somewhere inbetween 3.30 and 4am. so when we were down to 27 at 2.55am I told the players to stop dealing, and suggested to the field that we play on til 4 as as we still had over an hour of possible play left and I did not want to have to bring so many players back, as only 10 were getting paid.

This suggestion was met with approval from all remaining, and the decision to continue did not really effect your friend as he was no longer in the tournament. Had he of hung on in there he may well have ended up coming back today with very few chips, which as you said was not what he wanted to do. However, i do understand that he may have been a little miffed, but it's very difficult to please 100% of the field.