Augured-in means drilled below the surface by a failed landing?
Sorry, but my background isn't sufficient for me to decode the jargon.
Bear in mind that MSL should have a much longer lifetime than MERS - maybe 8 times as long. It will have an advanced instrument package that will give lots of info beyond MERs capability. It will be faster and more agile (can ignore larger rocks in its path) and cover more ground in a shorter length of time.
I think they will be able to test the heck out of the sky crane concept on earth. If there is a major engineering flaw as you say, we won't wait to find it on mars.