There's no freude like Schadenfreude...
Someday, the story about how the Big B messed up something that they had already done twice before will be told.
If I had to guess at root causes (with some help from Boeing's subsequent actions) I would look inside Boeing Commercial. Busy with a lot of programs, of which the tanker may be the least important to Commercial, and hence the least likely to springboard one's career, particularly since it involves learning a lot of Pentagon lore and culture that you wouldn't expect to use again.
So when Tanker went looking for people from commercial programs, did they get sent the best, or the people their leads wanted to get shot of?
That may well have been even more important than the Frankentanker factor.