As a former Boeing software engineer (not on the commercial plane side) I can say without any hesitation that you're completely wrong in your description of what goes on at Boeing. The "bloat" you speak of is the very reason we are not subjected to many more tragedies like this. Safety takes time and people.
Why roll out a change without notifying someone? Why make systems more complex when miscommunication results in death?
This isn't to say that manual, mechanic controls are better that automated electronic ones. Indeed the Air France crash from Brazil was mechanical pilot error.
But for me it is not sufficient to say "we do a really good job and have a lot of safety protocols."
