downwind, you make a good point about the f2.
my point was only that the buc was not perfect 5 minutes after the engineers had sketched out the design on the first fag packet.
i do however agree that things were simpler in the past, but as the above posts also show, current designs have got to the point where a single entity can't hold the whole design in their head - they are just too complex, and that complexity is driven by the requirements.