> And I gotta say the worst failings here are with the FAA.

The FAA is underfunded to do their job properly. The major consequence of this is that to properly certify the changes from Boeing would have taken a long time. A long time would mean that Airbus would win more contracts compared to Boeing. With a pro-business administration in place, there was significant pressure put on the FAA to complete the certification quickly. They were actively encouraged to outsource safety work back to Boeing's engineers to keep pace on the timeline.