Fuubar wrote
"As someone (more than one) has said before me, status messages are just that - status messages that a lot of very clever engineers and test pilots decided should inform the crew of a degradation in aircraft systems that were not important enough to require crew action. "
I admire your confidence in computer systems. However, unfortunately, they can only give messages (status, warning or other) for something they know about. Therefore, if there are no sensors, gauges or other inputs to monitor then they cannot tell you about it. I would guess that the cowling was not connected to any sensor, so the computer was not able to pass on the info that it was not all there.
Pilots can only make decisions based on the info they have, but it is not wise to assume that all the info is available. Computers are 'smarter' than they used to be, but i am not sure it is wise to rely completely on them. I used to write software for banks. They are not infallible. They are not God. People should use them with care.