Pure speculation on my part, but on a first flight when you're shaking out the fundamentals, it's safer to not retract landing gear in case there is a catastrophic failure in, say, your hydraulic system.
One dynamic that may be at play: Designing a new engine is a gamble. For a company who already makes money with existing designs, there may be little upside on a small-volume new product. This is likely the reason the "Big 3" passed on designing an engine they don't have an off-the-shelf option for.
Boom would probably be the primary beneficiary of such an engine existing, so it isn't all that surprising that they will have to fund the development. The second supersonic airframe that can use their engine would be the one to turn that R&D profitable for Boom (and ease the introduction of more supersonic airframe options).
For context, BC, Washington, Oregon, and California have all passed state bills to move to permanent DST but need Federal approval per U.S. law. In short, they did get approval from the time zone who will be first to make the change, and the support is pretty overwhelmingly in favor. The North American west coast will change as one to full time DST if this passes the House and is signed by the President.
I understand the potential confusion, but do you think this has hurt the Xbox One adoption? I think it's probably possible to execute a "One" branding correctly, provided it gives the users a sort of "universal" experience ala Prime.
I agree that this definitely looks like the play - Google's "Prime" service. I only hope that they choose a more reasonable strategy for migrating users to it as they expand features. YouTube Red can become part of a Google One tier for new users with older users grandfathered. Integration of existing user bases can happen later.
Storage is a cheap benefit to provide for the average user who won't use it all. YouTube Red is already $9.99 - just add the 2TB Drive option for free and starting selling everyone on the Google One branding. Please don't screw this up?