Legend has it that Boeing is built for pilots, while Airbus is built for those that want to be pilots. In Boeing jets, the pilot can override onboard computers and their built-in soft limits should they choose to do so. Boeing planes are designed to put the ultimate control of the aircraft into the hands of the pilot while Airbus prefers to leave control to software, automation.
What is not being said about where the blame lies is the hubris in which Airbus places its trust in automation, software over that of human/pilot intervention.
Years ago, there were a series of articles in IEEE journals on flight management engineering of both Airbus and Boeing.
The prevailing take-away I got from reading the articles written by the Airbus engineers was that they thought pilots were incompetent cowboys who waste fuel. They made design choice upon design choice to cut off pilot judgement and replace it with technocratic assumptions of efficiency.
When I fly, I am paying for the judgement of the guys up front, who I believe have the highest level of enlightened self-interest there could be: those pilots will usually be the first to arrive at the crash site if they make a big mistake. If they think it is prudent to burn some additional fuel, then burn away.