TT, your #333 is a little disengenuous. Airbus took on a couple of our senior MACR Loadmasters when it was still a paper aeroplane and they were building the mock up at Bremen. Some of these guys had been mentored by AA62. Lots of UK SMEs had an input including the AD and AFE RMs, QinetiQ trials Officers, JADTEU and the HOEU. These folks sat on a number of Working Groups. It certainly appears that the fruits of their labours and all those early morning starts to get to Bremen weeks on end have been wasted.
I do agree with you over the point that Airbus tried to implement many engineering fixes that even defied basic physics.