The fact that the AOA sensor uses set screws instead of indexing shows to me that it was never considered to be a part critical to safety. If there was one moment when Boeing "jumped the shark" it was when they promoted a part whose failure was rather innocuous to one that had authority over a large flight control surface. I think we might be going somewhat down the same road with automobiles, the parking radar that beeps when you get too close to a wall can now slam on the brakes at 70mph. One hopes that automotive engineers are more attentive to Murphy's law than aerospace engineers.