Blackmail,
well yes structural analysis advanced since the late 60s (747) so nowadays in application is damage tolerant structure.
How good it is? Well, the aircraft are lighter, definitely, since you do not need to put all the redundant load path (additional structure that will carry the load if something fails).
On the other hand it is so hard to do a good prediction with damage tolerant structure on when and where it is going to fail so it can be prevented. If you don't have a good MRO it can go bad, really bad.
Anyway, inspection intervals for structure are set in a conservative manner in order to cover for all eventualities.
Still...
This methodology was always prone to different interpretations.
Let's hope that 380 will get out of flight test without big problems...