So they can spend 5 billion on something that will be flying 4 years after and outsold by the Airbus anyway.
I'm sure there's profit for them in it, but God wouldn't it be great to see them start with a blank sheet of paper and show us what they can really do again? 707, 727, 737 classic, 747, 777....blew the competition into the middle of the next decade. Hell Airbus only managed to beat the 777 last year!
We're starting to see ceilings being hit. The VLAs are dead in a pax role, the 777x might be too big too...so 77W/A35K might be the limit for profitable widebody production and looks like A321Neo is about the largest size for profitable narrowbody production. Boeing isn't ideally placed for either based purely on sales.
Good thing the 787 sold so well.
Come on Boeing, the whole industry knew you had the best engineers in the business 20 odd years ago, cut them loose and let them show us what they can do again!