Footman
This is the first Olympics with the new qualification system. Previously there were A and B qualifying times. Countries could have only one athlete per event if they had B qualifiers but up to three if they were all A qualifiers. The qualifying times for A qualifiers was much slower than the current automatic qualifying times.
World Athletics wanted to change the way people qualified for World Championships and Olympics. They wanted to recognize competition as much as race times. Area championships and Diamond League races had extra points. They wanted to have as many people qualify by their world rankings as they would by their times and they set what they thought was very tough qualifying times to achieve that.
Unfortunately, their scheme of having people qualifying by rankings was undermined by the amazing increase in track performances across the world. (Obviously, because everybody trains harder and smarter than they did before the last Olympics :)
Craig Engels is a very good athlete but Cole Hocker earned his place on the team through World rankings. I am sorry but I think anyone who believes that Engels has a better chance at a medal than Hocker is seriously deluded.