I'm okay with Norrington, because in the film he said he had to give up everything that made him who he was (his commission, his life, his girl) and then he chased Jack and couldn't catch him, going through a hurricane that undoubtably took most of his shipmates, and, well, if a person doesn't go a bit mad with all that, he's a saint. I'm very glad that they did say all of that, or I would've been feeling like it was coming out of left field, or, as you're implying, like he was OOC.

The fic gets to us all, and now it's been jossed well and good, thus new canon to build on! And oh, was there lots of juicy Jack/James that could be built into and off of this.