Weekend Warriors: Birth of the B-52 Why could they do it then but we can't today?

Ok, I'm sure Boeing embellished this story a bit .... but if they didn't wow!  The USAF stated that they wanted a jet engine, long range bomber (just out of curiosity wasn't the B-47 the first long range bomber?) and over the course of a weekend engineers from Boeing had a proposal ready to go?

We need to get the sense of urgency, the get it done attitude and the skill back into our defense design/procurement.

Why could they do it then but we can't today?