BillS:
I just spoke with hubby and his explanation as to why SC was in obvious error sounded much like yours, though I understand little of what either of you said. Engineers have their own language it seems.
His closing comment on the subject was that Safety Concerns seemed to be looking at it from a "small difference that won't matter" approach when ANY reduction above around 4 to 5% represents a serious benefit. Extrapolate those benefits across a fleet and it is a logical action.
He also mentioned the obvious points that Juan Tugoh observed, i.e., simple manual action, no design change required, etc., etc..
I do believe that we will be hearing a few individuals trying to justify BASSA's message (which has nothing to do with costs savings and everything to do with BASSA wanting control of the aircraft) with some rather interesting posts.