Originally Posted by
YAKflyer
Boeing's Fatal Mistake??? Simple merging with McDonnell Douglas.
It destroyed their culture and bankrupted their moral compass. They were an amazing organization before that fateful day.
This.
Reality is that the 757 is an old design, and making new ones was not going to help much even if re-engined. Too costly to mfg with old materials and processes and the efficiency would never be there.
They either needed a clean-sheet like the NMA, or to try to fill the gap from either end with stretch NB's and small WB's.
Even gap filling is far from ideal, and could not compete with a clean-sheet design. The reason the XLR is getting away with it is because it's based on a very efficient NB design (NEO) so it's numbers look decent compared to older models. But the XLR could not hold up well against a clean-sheet NMA, if such a thing were to come about in an alternate universe.