Re: Poor Design
'It's hard to blame them for making such a poorly designed aircraft, it was only the 1970s.'
There is a certain element of poor design in the 747, the forward section, with the hump, is an oval cross section. You'd probably noticed. Every time it gets pressurised it's basically trying to become circular which must have required quite a bit of excess weight to get the fatigue life out of them that they've managed.
I'm not sure how the A380 compares, although Singapore Airlines are retiring the first one they got 10 years ago to be and returning it to the leasing company.