Your comment is a good example of how not to communicate effectively.
You pose a "question" in such a condescending and dismissive tone that leaves no room for fallibility in your assumptions or your knowledge, no reasonable answer other than "hurr, of course you're right and Boeing is teh dumbs" is possible without introducing conflict. If instead of taking a confrontational tone you took an inquisitive, deprecatory route of acknowledging that you lack perfect knowledge of aerospace design and are curious exactly why the 787 is considered so radical a design, given the seeming lack of outward differences of appearance from existing planes, you would perhaps start an engaging, informative discussion.
Boeing shopped the Sonic Cruiser concept extensively to the airlines. The premise of the Sonic Cruiser was a 15-20% increase in speed (Mach 0.95-0.98) without increasing the fuel burn rate.
The airlines said "no thanks, give us 15-20% lower fuel burn rate at the current speed" (Mach 0.85). The 787 was the result... the form follows the function.
You think Boeing should design planes based on how cool they look? Myself, I'd rather that any plane I travelled in was designed by competent auronautical engineers.
look closer! you don't have to know anything about composite structure etc. just take a thoughtful look and you'll understand that it's not your usual airliner (although it is very similar in many ways)!
I'm sure they have plenty of supersonic airliner designs lying around, but I'm afraid you're not prepared to pay for a ticket to fly on one ;)
You pose a "question" in such a condescending and dismissive tone that leaves no room for fallibility in your assumptions or your knowledge, no reasonable answer other than "hurr, of course you're right and Boeing is teh dumbs" is possible without introducing conflict. If instead of taking a confrontational tone you took an inquisitive, deprecatory route of acknowledging that you lack perfect knowledge of aerospace design and are curious exactly why the 787 is considered so radical a design, given the seeming lack of outward differences of appearance from existing planes, you would perhaps start an engaging, informative discussion.