I like Chairman's point - often summed up as "Never fly the Mk1/ A-model version of any aircraft".
As for stopping
PR hype from hitting the streets, perhaps corporate comms should only be allowed when members of ALL specialisations are in the same press conference, with complete freedom to chip in when necessary. When the Sales team make some over-optimistic pitch, or the Engineers overdo their doom-and-gloom, the balancing opinion will be there on hand to sort things out. I bet MDHI wish there'd been a few engineers in the room when the marketing team sold a version of the Explorer that didn't exist to the Dutch police.