I also think it's important to recognize no one commenting in the article has seen the analysis, knows what is meant by "structural damage" or what went into Boeing saying a failure resulting from it is "extremely improbable". Could be it's a solid analysis, the structural damage they mention is no where approaching a concern, and they think it's extremely improbable for good reason. Or not, I just don't think we know.
That being said, it is hard for me to look at this as something other than another example of poor company culture. You have a component that can be damaged when exposed to temperatures above a certain limit, for a certain length of time, connected to a heater that can heat it above that limit for longer than that time... And no systems to stop this?
This strikes me as being due to someone without an engineering degree saying "We've always used this heating system, there's no need to go through an in depth new analysis or testing regime to validate it's use, that would cost lots of money!".