Funny, isn't it, when Boeing dresses up an ageing girl with a new pair of boots and feathers it's hailed as a winner, perhaps even able to knock the clean-sheet competitor off its peg, but when Airbus did the same with the A330 it was shot down from nearly all sides, primarily because it was deemed uncompetitive against the clean-sheet from Seattle.
With that in mind, it is worth remembering that EK, along with a lot of other airlines, were sort of hot on the A330neo too, until they started becoming more hot on Toulouse doing a clean-sheet design instead that is. We all know what happened next, and I for one will not be surprised if the happens here; all it really takes is for Airbus to start muttering about an A350-1100 and it's game over.
I thought this thread may turn into an A vs B bitch-scrap
The reason Airbus canned the original beef-up of the A330 was that airlines wanted a fuselage cross-section similar in size to the 777.
The 777 already has the cabin width they want, and the -X is essentially a longer 777 fuselage with brand new wings, engines and tail.... and possibly a 787 avionics suite as the two already share a common rating.
Therefore you could say it
is pretty-much a clean sheet, not a revamp. I'm sure the reason they want to keep the 777 branding tag is the success of the original 777 which has turned out to be the most successful large passenger aircraft built.
Makes sense to me!