To be fair, no one actually discovered the bridge was made of rotting wood. They seemed focused on the fact that math PhDs design it with no civil engineering background and stated plastic had no known defects.

I think that is incorrect. This is a problem with the protocol which is the main thing people were raising as having a distinct smell and being novel for no good reason so while most of the comments were not about specific flaws they were not unrelated. IGE and SHA1 were the obvious red flags that people involved were not up to date with the latest crypto research.

[Edit: I can't find the comment so I withdraw this claim:

There was at least one comment possibly from moxie mentioning odd use of nonces that may have been in this area, if so it was right on target.]

To make a harsh analogy it's like using a colander for a boat and then complaining that a particular hole wasn't pointed out to them.