I realise that on proon Boeing heads leap to the defence of their aircraft and love to bash the plastic buses whereas Airbus fans love to push their sidesticks and hose the old Boeings but surely one fact is becoming clear about Boeing in the 21st century:
their marketing department is out of control.
The Sonic Cruiser and 7E7 have both suffered from the marketing people pushing sketches and not hard info, and the engineers are undoubtedly getting the shaft for being the people to bring the bad news.
Boeing's proximity to Microsoft (another firm famous for talking the talk) seems to be catching - perhaps they should move!
Wasn't there some aircraft designer type (British circa WW2?) who designed planes on the basis of good looking planes fly right?