Just throwing a little more hydrocarbons on the fire.
The 380 has by its own lack of success in quantifiable terms taught AB a valuable lesson with respect to the market place for large aircraft such as it is.
Boeing, having created the market recognised 20 years ago that apart from several dozen super-hub or slot constrained airports already or projected to be in existence that the true growth potential lay in fragmented point to point travel. It was part of the business case for the 777, and definitely the 787 /777x. For their part, the talking heads in Toulouse realised that in order to be a true competitor they needed a bigger twin which we now see in the 350. The A380 programme has in essence been a financial and sales disaster for AB and the EU, but it has created a number of innovations that will live on in the 350, which by all accounts is a fantastic aircraft. Any commercial aircraft programme that is reliant on a sole customer for the vast majority of orders must be seen as not meeting the markets requirements, it must also follow on that the sole customer will employ this aircraft in increasingly niche roles (aka super-hubs, slot constrained airports), which thanks to its superior pax/payload combination will forever doom it ultimately to this role.
Make no mistake, the 380 is going to be in and out of DXB, LHR, SYD etc etc for years to come, it won't however pioneer a new age in aviation and will be regarded much like Concorde in that whilst a fantastic technical accomplishment it may be, it will never rule the sky's like the 747, 737, or as the A320 does today.