Interesting. I hadn't really thought of the "what if they had just plunked it hard down first time round" question. One to think about; though far beyond my paygrade, such as it is. And, as far beyond my paygrade but in a different direction, a couple of long-tim,e forum members, engineering types, early in the thread drew attention to the lower tubing layout in these particular engines rendering them especially "sensitive" to this horribly hard scrape. If that's the case - not my paygrade, excuse my ignorance.... - good folks will be looking at the issue.
It's one of the things I love about the aviation community - there's always someone who will be saying, Hmmm - is there anything I could do to stop those cheese-holes lining up quite like this next time?
AGBagb, I'd be very surprised if any thought will be given to the location of engine components or any consideration given to airworthiness of such a design. Here is an incident in which the aircraft landed gear up and a go around was initiated, one engine failed on power application, a circuit was made on the "good?" engine, and landed this time gear down. You can't completely design out human failures, or stupid.
https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/577788...-080_final.pdf