How much development time does Apple need for a new laptop design? I think it takes them about 2 years.
So if you say they could have had fixed keyboards in 2017, they would have had to start designing them in 2015, which is a year before the 2016 models even went on sale.
My assumption is that they only realized that the butterfly switches are unsalvageable after the July 2017 upgrade failed to fix the problems, so they started working on new Macbook designs with scissor switches in late 2017, which will be released in 2019/2020.
Given that Apple is a company headed by a COO, run entirely on tight logistics, my strong belief is that they just wanted to use up all the butterfly keyboard key-mechs they had already pumped out.
I mean I'm not trying to downplay how huge it would be to dump that design early, they have an insane amount of machinery and production line set up which they expect to get a few years of usage out of and at the end of the day only the CEO can make a call on if its important enough to go back and retool early and your Ballmers, your Tim Cooks are just never going to make that trade off.
An ops person isn't going to lose any sleep over the MacBook line being downgraded from a great product to an ok product.
I think they admitted something was wrong as soon as they created the replacement program, it's just they have been completely unwilling to alter their planned product schedule to fix it early. When they create a laptop design they expect to be able to ship the same basic chassis design for 3-4 years and in this design the keyboard and chassis are so entwined they're literally bolted together.
We're getting a new non-Pro design revision with it fixed right on schedule and the Pro isn't scheduled to redesign till next year so we get the fix then. Both these fixes could have been in the market 1-2 years ago if they company truly wanted it.
They just decided it either wasn't worth the money, or wasn't worth changing their cadence to fix it early. Just don't think they have much respect for their Mac customers anymore and know they'll stick around.