the way he handled the situation should be lauded

The reason why it is not lauded is because the police aren't expected to do that in a potentially dangerous situation; their job is to protect the general public. They have a duty to respond to both active and imminent threats. Civilians can choose not to save someone in danger and they are not held responsible; they have no duty to respond. Police do.

If someone was volatile and waving a gun around at someone else and the officer hesitated to allow that person time to surrender when it is obvious that the gunman is likely to shoot, and that gunman shot an innocent bystander before the officer responded with deadly force, no one is going to thank the police for sparing that guy.

They will rightfully blame the police for failing to protect a member of the public, because they had the opportunity to incapacitate the threat before he could act, and I have ZERO doubt that you would've blamed such an officer for doing that.

The only reason why you're lauding his behavior in the first place is because you'd rather see an officer fall in the line of duty than for people to just not do stupid shit and for officers to neutralize threats immediately.

There is no honor in being senselessly slaughtered because you waited on someone at point blank to shoot first.

I do think we should hold our Police Officers to a higher standard

Why not hold each other to higher standards such that we don't walk into a police station with a full combat load?

and did not threaten the police with anything other than his appearance

His stated reasoning for having that gear is because he was allegedly harassed by police and wanted "protection" from them, which means that his intent was to fire upon officers fulfilling their lawful duties as law enforcement officers.

No rational person wears a full combat load to confront police officers.

he was trying to resolve the situations with the tools he had available in a way where everyone stayed alive

The only reason why Brannon was able to retrieve his rifle in the first place was because Dinkheller did not immediately utilize his OC in conjunction with his handgun to subdue him in response to an imminent physical threat, and that hard lesson is what guided the officers' response in the police station.

From that point forward, officers were trained to immediately effect an arrest on a combative subject that is capable of, has ready access to, or is imminently about to use deadly force.

Instead of waiting at the vehicle, an officer in the same situation as Dinkheller would've followed the subject to their vehicle with their gun drawn (if they didn't already utilize their X26 at this point) and fired with immediate effect once the subject retrieved the rifle.