This is a comment that seems to suggest that it's abnormal for dumb bugs to cause huge security problems. It is not. If the foundation of our economy is C software security, well, hate to break it to you, but...
This is why it's a big deal.
Why should we even bother talking about bugs like this anymore? Pure distraction.
You mean: had total control over all the original iPhones that they could get physical access to. (back when jailbreaking was extremely simple and common)
One of the sources: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/the-nsa-repo...
Basically how it worked was they jailbroke your iPhone and installed spyware on it. Is it quite likely that today, 7 years later, they have a remote 0day to do the same? Absolutely. But there's no proof that "the NSA has total control over all iPhones".
Suppose a contractor was hired by the NSA to write an exploit with equivalent function. How could it be crafted more cleverly?