Its kind of depressing. We all screw up at some point or another, some of our jobs have worse consequence then others when we screw up. But it happens to everyone.
So some guy working for XBOX Live probably figured they'd have enough bandwidth or server power or what not, messed up.
Sure it sucked that live got sketchy for a while, but its not the end of the world. I'm all for cutting people/companies a little slack (unless they take it to far).
I think some people think, everyone else is perfect, but at some deep down level, everything is run by people, created by people, and mistakes happen, don't have to pounce on everyone when someone/company f*cks up.