A team of Boeing 737 training captains visited our company. They told us of some changes being introduced on coming upgrades. They then threw the floor open to us saying, "you guys fly this a/c every day in all kinds of weather, differing environments and ground facilities. You can tell us what you think; you've more experience than us." So we tried, but more often than not were poo-poo'd without explanation. It was like asking questions to a politician and being diverted in every which direction except the one you were focused on. We asked why it was so difficult for line pilots to ask questions, for clarification, or make suggestions for improvement in Boeing's publications. We were referred to 'the company liaison pilot.' Yeah, right: deaf ears and closed doors. Too busy.
Apple have squillions of products out there and have user chat forums and customer support forums. Boeing have less than 100,000 a/c buzzing around the world and no method for the coal face operators to chat, either amongst themselves or to the company. Surely that is dinosaural in this day and age?? I wonder if the SFO B777 might have been avoided if the 'gotcha' had been discussed openly. Or is the exposure to liability too great for such a project? But is the sharing of information, especially about mistakes made by others, and experiences/incidents of other operators, not the basis of Flight Safety Foundation magazines which are circulated amongst most airlines? Is the security of dissemination of information the problem? It does seem counter productive to read accident reports and then discover that XYZ + ABC had nearly done the same thing for there same reason a few years earlier, but only the XAA or manufacturer knew about it.
This is not a Boeing thing, but an industry characteristic. In 80's I used to receive a monthly magazine from the company. It included all the reviews of major company incidents plus relevant ones from partner contributors. Very educational. Changing companies in 90's - 10's saw that education disappear. It took an accident, and 3-4 years of study, before the report taught us anything. My comment about education comes from incidents where accidents were prevented. Maybe there are companies with large enough budgets to still have an in-house dept for such publications, but further down the food chain we were often in the dark, even about in-house incidents.