Especially when you compare it to the 777 development, which was on time/on budget/on spec. And the first airplane was good enough to go into commercial service.
Serves to show how much damage a bunch of MBAs can do.
It was more fundamental than that. It was the MacDac influence. Prior to the merger, Boeing top brass saw it as an engineering company first and foremost, that happened to build aircraft. After the merger with MacDac (when McDonnell bought Boeing with Boeing's money), the company was viewed as a manufacturing company. The result was nearly catastrophic - and lead directly to the 787 fiasco.
It's been slow and painful, but Boeing has moved back towards being first and foremost an engineering company over the last decade.
MCAS not withstanding...