Well yes, all of that is true. Not-withstanding. Esso Captains usually displayed excellent skill and judgement in everything they did...if an Esso Captain thought a net was too small for a sling load job I'd be surprised he proceeded with the mission using that net. No different today, if an Esso Captain thought that ladder was rigged properly - and let's face it, it obviously wasn't - I'm surprised they proceeded with a "let's see how it flies" experiment. Particularly since nobody wants to be the first to put a scratch on the shiny new toy. From the video of the incident, the load flew exactly as expected for the way it was rigged. Lucky they didn't put a scratch on the shiny new toy, or worse.
Mistakes made in the past are likely to happen again if the lessons learned are ignored. The recommendations made in the incident report following from the EXQ bombing run, if followed, should have seen them not do what was done this time.