Even though I haven't seen the episode and don't intend to (anyway we don't have a WB affiliate here), it seems to me you and KingKrypton are NOT talking about the same moral choice, here. What KK said was:
In the episode, Lana dies in a car wreck.
There is a big difference between deciding who to pull out of a burning building (in your example) and putting an innocent at risk to UNDO something that's already happened. Clark, as I read it, was too irrational and immature to accept reality and so he willfully placed another person at risk to defy nature and undo something he felt "should never have happened."
First, it shows a childishness on his part that he can't accept the cruelties of life, something we mere mortals have to deal with all the time. Second, any man worth two cents would stop and think, "If I do this, someone else will die, and their loved ones will feel as terrible as I do right now." And third, until that other person in your theoretical fire expires, there is always the possibility...however slight...that they will survive. Clark (again, as I understand it) is told outright that *someone will die*, period, if he makes this choice, and he does it anyway. The difference is in your scenario, you merely fail to save everyone, while on the show (I gather) Clark actually KILLS a person. And as I also surmise, we are supposed to feel bad about it because that person turns out to be one he cares about. One presumes that if it were just some schlub down the street who buys it, he wouldn't give a hoot.
Another issue I have is; just how can the "spirit" of Jor-El have ANY effect on events on Earth? Is the guy dead or isn't he? THis is something that I found maddening in the Reeve movies and I hope (against hope) that Singer won't perpetuate it. How can a man 30 years dead have a live chat with his son, or (as he did in Donner's version of II), strip away or restore Clark's powers? It's just dumb. Though dead, Jor-El is not only still active he's even more powerful than Clark is ALIVE???
I gather the reason Jonathan died is so Clark can make the next step to manhood. Without his father to give advice, etc, he has to grow up now, right? Well, not if his REAL father is handy at the Fortress to give advice (and physical AID) at any time. In fact, what's to keep Bo Duke from coming back as an apparition and doing the same thing?
As for what Clark sees in Lana, in 70+ years of the mythos I've never figured out what he saw in Lois, so I guess I'm just used to it.