The interesting thing to note about the "cracked" windscreen incident is that before the engineers even entered the flight deck after the aircraft landed from LA a news helicopter was seen circling above. Could be coincidence and the helicopter being there on different business, I didn't even check the news on the day to see if there was TV coverage about it, or someone internal in the know must have informed the media.
As for the windscreen itself it was in this case indeed a nonevent, either the internal vinyl layer split or part of the window heat conductive layer, conflicting info being thrown around. Either way not a structural defect at all and the aircraft would have been able to continue if it wasn't for the fact that this particular window was manufactured by GKN which makes the limits for damage more stringent than a PPG window. So the window got changed, with a part from the preferred manufacturer. Unfortunately by that time the crew had run out of hours and the flight finally departed just after 01:00am the next day. So pretty much a completely safe non event that nonetheless ended up in a very big delay and big media coverage. Bad luck for Qantas and deserved media bashing for all the reasons other contributers in this thread already highlighted.
No point crying foul, just get on with the job and get the public and media on the side, not with stupid
PR spindoctors that talk obvious crap but honesty, safety and a great product serving Australians, not the managers bonusses. Is it going to happen? I seriously doubt it.