Looks to me like Boeing started with an ultra-futuristic design (rounded Shark-fin empenage, rounded wingtips, kink free cockpit nose etc.) and Airbus started with an A330. In the end we will have two more or less identical aircraft right in the middle between these first ideas.
If you look at the latest 787 3 side view, it´s more or less a 767 now (with the not very sexy fuselage shape when seen from the side). The Differences in external layout are small, yet inside it is a total different animal. Whether the new materials will pay off in the long term, we will see.
It´s a little bit like for cars, when they show you designers pictures of the new model, they always look space-age like. In the End you get a more or less conventional car with some fancy plastics fairings. And the composite structures (Matra Baghera, Renault Espace) change to conventional metal within a few years. (Except for the Trabant 601 of course, which was composite until the very end
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