This is the pinnacle of 'too big to fail' and 'easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission'. They rush planes to completion that are massively out of specification even withing their already grandfathered guidelines, then tell the FAA, "Well you can't expect us to have to SCRAP all these planes we made, now could you?", as the only way to achieve compliance would be a major structural redesign that is impossible to retrofit. A few shiny beads later to congressmen and FAA administrators and the necessary rubber stamps are dutifully applied and gazes redirected.
It was only by the grace of the residual decent engineering design that these massive short cuts didn't come apparent, but that 'lucky buffer' has run its course, and now the blood and guts are starting to spill. This behavior is so disgraceful it stinks to high heaven, and just goes to show the sickening greed and disregard for any decency of 'peak capitalism' of the US plutocratic type where governmental oversight has become toothless to the most shambolic, theatrical degree...