I know quite a bit and am part of the industry. I would disagree that they were solid. They were losing money and had been subject to FDIC scrutiny prior to 2005. There was a long running battle between the OTA and FDIC because WAMU had a very, very risky loan portfolio. However, they were allowed to fail (as I believe all should have been) for a few reasons: Killinger had no friends in Washington and didn't play the game; Killinger didn't sell at $8 a share to Chase when he could have; no one really cared, business as usual the next day. If they were based in Washington DC and not Washington State, they'd still be around IMO.
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