Secondly, there was a strong prevalence of the idea that, even IF they had found something, nothing could have really been done, which was probably true according to the post-mortem.
John Glenn had something similar happen on his orbital flight, and his reaction (since he survived to hear about it) was outrage. He said even if there was nothing he could do, he wanted to know what was going on in case there was a communication issue.
Either way, I'm highly dubious that some of the world's most competent scientists, engineers and military people couldn't work this problem and find a solution. NASA finding damage and having a few days to figure out how to fix it sets the stage for another Finest Hour. Instead, we have tragedy and disgrace.
"even IF they had found something, nothing could have really been done, which was probably true according to the post-mortem."
That would be a pretty weak excuse and only applicable in hindsight. I have read that depending on the size of the damage they could potentially have changed the descent profile to put more load on the other wing. To decide this you first need the data.
A fascinating article was posted a few years ago outlining the possibility of scrambling the Atlantis orbiter while Columbia was in orbit and performing a rescue of her crew. It was a fascinating "what-if", well worth your time:
That's a decision I don't understand. Would taking the pictures have been a big change in flight plan or something like that?