Europe is quite conservative, in the sense that they would not invest billions into an unproven venture. It makes sense that it would excel at an industry that requires putting safety above everything.
The article says they did a lot of customer research and even lobbying, leading to fuel efficiency focus and reduced size, and sticking the finger up to various offended European countries (not taking delegates to US, eschewing RR engines). This seems like savvy being sustained over decades. It must be cultural.
Even if you ask every person to walk the earth what they want, that won't allow you to know future demand. The market shifted largely from hub-and-spoke to point-to-point during development. Without the benefit of hindsight, it must have looked like a solid bet.
A380 was also the result of "customer interviews", but after all the years needed to complete the project the customers have changed their mind, preferring direct flights over hub-and-spoke flights.
When A380 started, and even when it was delivered first, the answers to "what will be the preferred form of airline transport network organisation, in detail" was not yet fully answered.
And A380 simultaneously served as base (in many critical areas) for the quite quickly made A350 et al
IMHO Europe changed massively since the 80s and 90s in that regard, though.
Arianespace was pretty much SpaceX of the 80s and there were quite a few tech companies back then. Due to various reasons stagnation entirely took over Europe after the start of this millennium. Hard to say why. Certainly not putting all the blame on them (since Britain isn't doing that great either) but I don't think especially the Euro and the EU becoming much stronger helped.