Actually, we should thank Lockheed and McDonnell-Douglas more than Burt Rutan for making composite airplanes possible for commercial airliners. Boeing just borrowed a lot of the research done on composite structures used on military aircraft and applied it to the 787. (The F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F-18 Hornet were among the first aircraft to use composites in a number of critical components to keep weight down.)
“(The F-16 Fighting Falcon and the F-18 Hornet were among the first aircraft to use composites in a number of critical components to keep weight down.)”
No they weren’t, not even close. Remember Aircraft plywood is a composite and has been used as a structural component in many airframes such as the Dehavilland Mosquito.