I think the saying was intended more as a curse "May you live in Interesting Times...." rather than a hope of peace and quiet.
Isn't the Boeing 787 situation similar to the A380 problems with the poorly design wiring? Definitely history repeating itself.. And also if computers failed to produce good matching components, should we trust them on the estimation of all the other features that make the 787 so innovative, or are we going to see more surprises during flight testing?
I don't think the two are directly comparable and I really wouldn't look to the computers as a source of blame. At the end of the day, they are only a tool in the hands of the Design Engineers and Drafters. I would suspect that the real root cause of both Airbus and Boeing problems is down to holes in the design process. I would also suspect that these holes are attributable to the length of the product design and life cycle. As the life cycle has stretched out for existing designs, there is now a severe lack of personnel in each organisation who have been involved in the development of a brand new design.
It is inevitable that during design of a new product that details are overlooked and snags occur as a result. However, if you have been involved in a similar development previously, you know what to look out for & what was missed the last time & either correct these omissions or allow for them to be worked on at a later time. The problem occurs when you have a long time between product developments the guys who come up through the organisation during the design process tend to either be near retirement age, have moved on or into management positions before the next development comes up, so you lose their experience. The guys who have moved on are no longer available to you, The guys in management have largely lost their design skills and have forgotten the details and minutiaie of the process and the few left who are nearing retirement are usually not considered for the new project as they won't be available for the duration of the work. There's also very few companies who have a formalised method of passing on or making available to the next project any lessons learned from the previous work.
What makes matters worse at the present time (& probably for the next decade or so) is that there was a great reduction in the numbers of engineering graduates in the late 80's and 90's due to a focus on Accountancy & other service sector careers (overhead generating jobs) coupled with an up tunr in their pay rates whilst Engineering rates took a nose dive & are still playing catch-up. As a result, there are relatively few engineers of my own age who have amassed a significant level of experience, but are still intimitely involved in the design process and who are involved in educating the next generation of practicing Engineers.
There are a whole load of graduates coming through, but they lack experience and in some cases the degree courses that award a (5 year) Masters level now, lack some of the course content that was in my basic (3 year) Batchelors degree, never mind the Honours part of the course.
Net result:
Loads of fresh new computer drivers who lack the experience to know if & when they are getting bad results from their PC or if they are setting things up incorrectly.
Too few guys left in charge with hands on knowledge to effectively manage & nurture the new intake.
Much of the best of the experienced personnel is walking out the door for higher paid jobs in management using none of their engineering expertise.
The remaining experienced are largely being passed over when it comes to setting up the project in the first instance so there is a bigger chance of things being missed.
One consolation and potential advantage that Airbus has however, is that they have an overlap between the A380 development and the development work for the A400 Military and also the A350 Civilain Projects. They just need to find a way to take experiences & personnel from the A380 project and feed them into these other two projects. However, this is not an approach which is conducive to initial cost reduction, but does contribute to significant cost savings towards the end of development, certification & through life. As a result up front cosst rise which the accountants oppose as it makes the balance sheet costs for personnel look slightly expensive over one or two years (& lower cost over the remainder of the project) rather than sort of OK/passable over ten to fifteen years.
I will now put my soapbox away until next year, but as Interpreter says, I'd really like to know the Hull number for the parts that kicked off this discussion.