Chris I hear what you're saying, and while I'm also not familiar with the 787 aircraft, on other contemporary aircraft I fly the fuel simply doesn't work as I think you believe. It's not like the "old" days where the refueler determines how much fuel will go in different tanks. These days neither the refueler nor the pilots determine how much fuel goes where, the aircraft decides that for itself. I've done countless flights where fuel has become trapped in areas we don't want it, but that's just tough luck. The only manual input on behalf of the refueler is to preselect the required fuel. Based on the information that has been released, it's almost certain that a valve or associated control has failed as part of that automatic process. I'm not sure why you seem to be constantly trying to implicate operator error. If the aircraft had a failure such that manual intervention of the refuelling distribution was required, assuming that is even possible without determined engineering intervention, it would also almost certainly make that a no-go item given the subsequent affect on the fuel system. That is just the way the fuel systems in modern aircraft work; brilliant and completely idiot proof when it works, wheeled back into the hangar when it doesn't.