Dragon metamorphosis and regeneration (spoilers for Liveship and Rain Wilds books)

[Chrischa]

[In a normal situation, yes. But this was an entirely new situation for the dragons to deal with. If there were only a handful of individuals left of your entire species, one would take whatever steps necessary to be sure that that handful would survive and reproduce, even if they are deemed inferior. Tintaglia's choice must have been a difficult one.

Now that you mention this... I always felt that this was the largest flaw the dragons have; they are so absorbed in their ancestor's memories, that they have great difficulty dealing with new situations.
This while the biggest strenght of humans seems to lie in their adaptability, and their ability to carve out a life for themselves wherever they are (this is even pointed out in the books at one point). The dragons seem sluggish in their thinking by comparison, unable to wrap their heads around things they haven't encountered before.

While nature otherwise seems to have gifted them with an unnumerable amount of tools for survival (big teeth, acid, inpenetrable hide, flight, Skill, ect.), this seems like a big lack in a species' evolution. Only by adapting to one's changing surroundings can a species survive and evolve, not by clinging on to what was before. But what do the dragons have to do to survive in this changed world? They have to return to Kelsingra, their old domain, which has changed very little.