You make an interesting point Mool, wrt why there wasn't more...

You make an interesting point Mool, wrt why there wasn't more groundwork put into the process prior to the FAA first approval. My feeling is, and I'm happy to be corrected on this, until there was definite FAA acceptance no OEM nor airline would have any interest in going too much further along in the discussions about an 'interesting idea' than what was achieved before that first approval.
And SMN did a lot of the groundwork over the years with airlines, plus OEM's, which I'm confident will bear fruit in the not-too-distant future. Delta Airlines, Boeing, Embraer, Northrop Grumman, Airbus to name some of them, all had discussions with SMN in recent years, some resulting in agreements. FAA is the real bugbear!