Whilst we are seeing a shift in Boeing's approach to the development of a commercial aircraft, what we are also seeing is just how hard it is to design an airliner structure to hit tolerances in disparate factories across the globe.
Having read the articles that are chucking in all sorts of words and phrases that mean something to some of us who are designing, making and building these things, its clear that they are fairly normal problems. In some respects its been blown out of proportion. There are a few things that do worry me in terms of process failure, using technology not being properly monitored/operated , shimming knock down factors etc.
Composites at this scale require larger tolerances and gaps than similar metallic items, and chances are they are harder to close and keep closed. That's what happens when you take your metallic structure and mostly just swap materials. Really needs a totally different approach and thats scary/expensive in the extreme.
As an aside, Airbus isn't that different with the integrator thing and the shifting of immediate technical risk to tiered partners. Its always more fun to bang a desk and point at a missed deadline than wondering how the f you're gonna solve todays inbox full of technical problems. It was a very business oriented direction to take and has only caused problems. It solved nothing.