flyingnewbie10
It seems like the word 'malfeasance' is tacked on to anything that has corporate involvement in your mind.
Yes, aircraft manufacturers have done some pretty silly things in the past to protect the bottom line, Airbus in not taking criticism of the early A320 interface (pre-A330 incident and subsequent improvement) on board early enough, Boeing maintaining that the 737 rudder actuator did not have a potentially dangerous failure mode despite 2 unexplained hull losses and many more incidents and even Douglas with their DC10 cargo door design (1 serious incident and 1 hull loss).
On the other hand, they do occasionally do the right thing. Boeing admitted responsibility for the botched repair that brought down JAL123, Airbus did eventually improve the systems interface of their FBW family and Douglas (by then MD) fixed their cargo door.
I think that a software change that continues the "RETARD RETARD" warning when either of the levers is forward of the IDLE detent would be worth pursuing (subject to a thorough HF report), but at the end of the day the levers were not retarded. I saw a post earlier stating that AB changed a procedure saying that both levers should be pulled into reverse, as opposed to the only the one with the functioning reverser, but even the previous procedure would have the lever to the engine with the non-functioning reverser at IDLE, not forward of it!