From what I read here, way back when, the pitot problem is one of poor quality control of the bleed hole. I have not read why they could not be reworked. Does anybody know the price of the new tubes? AF had them sheduled for the next C check, when a full pitot/static check would be performed anyhow.
I also read somewhere in all this that AF was not convinced the new pitot tubes were really an improvement.
GB