Certainly I agree the system is more complex and we could have designed it to work this way. But the stark reality was that these components were supposed to b

Certainly I agree the system is more complex and we could have designed it to work this way. But the stark reality was that these components were supposed to be wired a certain way in our design and the drive system was supposed to stand up to a lot more torque, as per the intended design. So I think it is fair to call these particular fixes workarounds. Your point that it is silly to look at these systems as anything other than integrated (often quite deeply) is well taken however. The fact that one can fix a mechanical defect using the software section of the system speaks volumes about just how integrated they are.