I think part of the problem is the focus on the financial figures for the next shareholder call. With a significantly longer time horizon it would be easy to justify investment in a total redesign, because it would lead to a number of cost savings down the line as technical debt was eliminated. And all for the low, low price of one comprehensive new government approval.

Instead it seems the goal was to get a moderately viable product to market as fast as possible, and the fastest and cheapest way was force some changes and fly under the regulators' radar.

That's at least one alternative perspective worth considering.