When it first came out the homebuilt aviation community was shocked because the "cutting edge" technology was worse than what home built aircraft have been using since the late 1970s. It's a Frankenstein design that mixes all sorts of technologies that have no business being mixed.

Burt Rutan, the creator of "SpaceShipOne" started back in the 1970s by producing a very successful line of composite aircraft kits for home builders, and even those had better composite construction than the 787!

Even the 1980s the Beech Starship was built with more advanced technology than the 787.

And what surprised everyone even more was that Airbus and other aircraft manufacturers have copied this Frankenstein construction method used by Boeing. It's an abomination, regardless of what manufacturer uses it.

From what I have been told, the poor design work at Boeing because the toxic work environment drives away the best engineers. Burt Rutan actually got insulted once when someone asked him if he wanted to run Boeing, because he considers it such an awful place to work.