The article and the video embedded within leave out a lot of context.
The Norcal controller was extremely unprofessional. Their behavior is a great example of the US controller attitude™ US ATC is so infamous for. No idea why this unprofessionalism is so prevalent in the US; I can only presume it has to do with being overworked and understaffed, with perhaps a pinch of god complex.
This was handled by Norcal, but SFO has an infamous controller whose poor behavior can be found all over the internet and the nearby smaller SQL controller who thought he was enough of a hot shit that he could lecture a designated examiner after the latter stepped in when the controller was acting like an unprofessional asshole on the radio.
A lot of this asshole behavior is targeted at international pilots, but enough of it is targeted at US pilots that I know of pilots who throw retirement parties for certain asshole controllers without inviting the retiree.
Anyways, let's focus on this particular incident.
For starters, SFO is a huge mess in every sense of the word. The design of the airport is just plain stupid, primarily the distance between the parallel runways that cause severe limitations when the weather isn't perfect.
Then there's the matter that SFO is just not suitable for the amount of traffic it gets, coupled with overworked controllers who rather kick the responsibility over to the pilots, leading to the visual approach and visual seperation preference by SFO.
Secondly, the notion that this is something new and novel that SFO has never heard of and can't do, or as the article puts it: "when all other planes are landing just fine", is just BS.
This flight from Munich comes in every night at SFO with the same IMC flight plan and the same path, so SFO/Norcal should be familiar with this, especially since it's their home base and Lufthansa is a regular customer.
Not only that, but many European airlines have the same regulations on visual separation at night as do other international airlines. The reason this is SOP with so many airlines is for a couple of reasons.
1) You cannot maintain visual separation at night based on lights only, there is no depth perception, and by the time you realize something's fucked, you're too late. TCAS isn't accurate enough for aircraft separation and explicitly states this in the manual.
2) The incident history in the US related to taking visuals at night supports the idea that this should not be allowed. The FDX170 incident in Tulsa comes to mind, or the ACA759 incident that nearly clipped a tail at SFO, no less.
3) The FAA advised against letting international airlines take visuals at night.
4) METAR had SCT and BKN cloud below 1500ft
On top of all that, PAL104 had received ILS just moments before without even asking for it (because it was in their flight plan).
So there's no need to act like this is some kind of extremely weird thing that blindsighted Norcal/SFO.
Thirdly, ultimately, the captain makes the determination of what they need, and the controller is supposed to provide that to the best of their ability.
Had the controller taken the flight plan into account and had their experience with Lufthansa's daily flights, then none of this would've happened, and nobody would've had to be delayed.
Nevertheless, the controller could've still granted ILS without much issue, it would've caused about 5 minutes of delay for the next flight.
That said, it's also not unreasonable to delay Lufthansa if the controller doesn't want to go through that effort.
That's the only reasonable thing the controller did.
What isn't reasonable is to hold Lufthansa for 30 minutes without any information or contact, then tack on another 10 minutes two more times.
And what especially isn't reasonable is to force them to divert to Oakland and say things like "this conversation is over" because your ego is bruised.
The Norcal controller was way out of line and with what passes for SOP in the US we're gonna have our own Tenerife disaster soon enough.