I hadn't heard of that one, but since hitting a flock of geese doesn't really count against an aircraft safety record, that makes it one hull loss in 25 years flying in North America. Not too shabby considering the number of legs it has flown.

NG's just end up off the runway more often. The new curb feelers may help in that they have reduced the crosswind limits, at the expense of, well, knocking off the expensive carbon bits every now and again.

I personally wouldn't want to do Flaps 15 approaches in an 800 or 900. The 700 it would probably be OK. The other factor besides approach speeds being higher is that the throttle setting would be much lower because of much less drag, giving less authority to fix high and fast. Sounds like more NG's off the end of the runway.