"and certainly not in these numbers. "
Well, THAT's true. But certainly me and a lot of other people were saying..."hmm...that's too much..." well before either crash. But that was an unpopular opinion that got shouted down...until, like you point out, after the crash. Things change, funny, huh? But I have the same opinion, before and after both crashes...that this model is too much, and if you ARE going to build something this big, you need to seriously re-think HOW it is being built.

"The facts remain that it did not break apart in flight and no one was injured in the crash, so it couldn've been that poorly designed.
What might have happened or could have happened doesn't matter, it's what DID happen that matters."

Now THAT I patently disagree with. I think failure was inevitable due to the structures and thinking used. I think 50 flights proves very little, and that sooner than later, there would have been some sort of structural failure.
So simple. Go take a coat hanger and bend it back and forth. Looks fine, right? Go bend it back and forth fifty times...now what do you have? A broken coat hanger. And when you are talking about a 300 pound model, you had better do some more serious testing and engineering, just adding more balsa, ply, and epoxy is not going to cut it.
I have nothing against the builder, and he did it under the auspices of the LMA...but have you noticed they would not approve a third one? What does that say to you?