Marketing should get more of the blame
Marketing should get more of the blame for Boeing's demise. There is one rule at Boeing that everyone follows. You don't argue with Marketing.
On 787, we had a former cellphone executive running Marketing. And the result was that we had gimmicks like naming the 7E7 airplane. Marketing also really liked the "shark fin" rendition of the airplane and told Engineering to make the airplane look like the marketing promotion materials. Marketing really liked the hump of the 747 as it created "product differentiation". And they wanted the same thing on the 787. Passengers for the most part don't really care which airplane they fly on for the most part, but Marketing wanted the 787 to stand out. So there are features on the 787 that make no appreciable benefit technically but look "cool". Take a guess as to who decided the roll-out date of July 8, 2007? And once that date was selected, everyone worked to maintain the charade that the airplane would be ready on that date. To be frank, everyone on the Engineering team was embarrassed by the state of the airplane at that event. It was a sad and demoralizing event for those who really understood the state of the airplane. I don't think any of the 787 Program leadership at that point had any say in this decision because they are essentially just following Marketing's marching orders.