[ScottyS]

Honestly, I imagine that most of the problem lies with the fact that the multi-billion-dollar mechanical platform that has all of the capabilities to do the work is no longer "in position". Having to deal with this scenario without the platform in place was not thought through.

Think of it like.....the Space Shuttle gets up into position to deploy a pair of comm sats out of the bay, and as soon as the doors open, the robotic arm refuses to respond and all of the tooling attachments in the bay go haywire. Now the astronauts have to deploy the sats using gloved hands and Gerber multi-tools. And Come-Alongs. Good luck with that.