The MD11 was a dog (in terms of range and performance guarentee’s), because there was a lack of investment.

1. The designers wanted a new super-critical wing design, but unfortunatly the board in there wisdom, decided that they didnt want to spend the millions of $$$$ on research and testing, so told the designers to “improve” the old wing (from the DC10). Now there is only so much you can do with an old design (just ask Airbus and there original A330/A350 hybrid) and basically the project was hamstrung (if thats the correct saying) befor it got off the ground.