A "good idea" doesn't turn to sh*t overnight, if it was a "good idea" all those months ago for the overall strength of the V group longterm it should STILL be a good idea.
Tiger were given the responsibility to take Bali off VA and make it work. They couldn't do it with the A320. And I guess they wanted to avoid having a mixed fleet of 737 and A320, so a D was made to re-fleet.
Now that TT is not going to Bali, I guess the original driver for change has gone. The 320 is more then capable of the short haul international flying TT is eyeing to the East and North East of Australia.
Was it a **** idea? Probably. No-one could see how TT were going to do it cheaper, not many changes, and the costs of re-training flight crew & cabin crew, painting frames, ripping out seats etc must have been enormous. Plus the 'experts' saying a narrow body on this route would be competitive when everyone else is using a wide-body. The line to the rear toilets has I've heard extended back too business class on many occassions. Bali has been a noose around Virgins neck from day 1.
It did show one example where JB didn't sing from the Qantas playbook. Most group operators like to split between Boeing and Airbus to cover the risk of any airworthiness issues.
Congratulations maybe to TT flight operations, who are rumoured to instead of just taking all the VA CASA approved B737 manuals and doing a 'find' & 'replace', went and did a re-write of procedures on how to fly a Boeing like an Airbus. That stalling tactic may have just paid off.