I'm sure it's possible to extrapolate 787-10 performance figures from the 787-8 but a couple of things crossed my mind, viz:
Boeing is confident that improvements it is implementing on the 747-8 will recover performance to beyond customer guarantees and bring it "very close" to the original brochure claims made at the time of launch.
Boeing deactivated the 747-8I's horizontal stabiliser fuel tanks prior to certification last year after analysis showed that a failure of the wing-to-strut join fitting could allow flutter in the horizontal stabiliser when the fuel tanks on either side are filled to more than 15% of their capacity.
I'm not sure the latter quote could be classified as a "hiccup" as it has an impact on employability of the aircraft. That said, I'm sure Boeing will fix it. So it's not only Airbus that makes performance predictions which look great in computer simulations but then turn out to be overly optimistic when the aircraft actually flies.
Discussions such as this one might be interesting for some and boring for others but, at the end of the day, are entirely academic as I venture to suggest that the overwhelming majority of pilots would base their equipment choice (if they were to have one) on the route network and the lifestyle it affords, not the manufacturer.
If Boeing were to extrapolate the 787-10 performance from the 787-8, do you think the extrapolation of the delay in delivery should be linear or exponential?
STP