What this accident served to demonstrate was that a lot of sloppy practices had crept into the system, in maintenance, in flying the aircraft, and in not adhering strictly to weight and balance considerations.
The fact that the aircraft coped admirably with all these issues for many years without a mishap demonstrates that the aircraft was operating well within its limits when everything was done by the book. It was also capable of operating quite a bit beyond the book figures when required. The aircraft acquired something of a reputation for being able to handle anything that was thrown at it.
The conclusion has to be that many crews undertook flights under similar circumstances and repeatedly got away with it. Because of that, this was an accident that was bound to happen sooner or later. The Titanium strip was just an initiator in a chain of events that stretched from well before the aircraft boarded passengers to the decision not to reject take off. Nobody involved in the chain of events comes out squeaky clean.