It would only be malice if Boeing were trying to kill passengers - which seems unlikely.

But not knowing this would be an issue in a context like this is the definition of corporate incompetence. And that doesn't make things any better for Boeing.

This is literally mission critical design. You don't walk away from the wreckage shrugging and saying "Who knew?"

It doesn't matter if this was an engineering failure, a management failure, or an accounting failure. What matters is that it was a failure that killed people, and Boeing cannot be trusted to make safe air liners until the failure mode is discovered and eliminated.