Burnelli planes with substantial tails, and no fuselage but a simple chunky airfoil section square or rectangle, were called "flying wings".
Nobody made that mistake in the '70s when Boeing started publicizing the model 754 to cargo flyers like Emirates, Cargolux and Husky. up to 300+ feet of containers in some designs.

Boeing patent sheets claim that the tube & wing is nearing the end of its ability to be stretched. Landing gear have to be strengthened and more added, and they need to be taller for rotation angle, and the wing root box on a bigger stretched version is nothing like earlier models.
In a spanloaded plane, you add more lanes of freight or internal space, every couple of lanes you add an engine and another landing gear set. Everything else from rotation angle, lower landing speeds, and landing gear sets would stay the same, and L/D goes up as you stretch it spanwise.
Like the Burnelli, there was no attention paid to "blending" anything, no questions of lack of stability or control authority.

One Burnelli plane in the '30s crashed due to apparent mechanical errors. It hit the ground 110 degree roll, 20 degree nose down, at ~125 kts.
The wings and tails turned to confetti and the engines broke off as the fuselage body cart-wheeled, coming to rest upright. When they broke it open and got to them, the 2 crew walked away.
Another Burnelli plane (CBY-3, in a museum now) also had more payload and lower landing speed, and the test pilot boasted about being able to do a "suicide stall": cut power and pull back, and just as it starts to fall off push a rudder pedal and let go the controls.
It simply turned a bit, and flew off level at whatever the power setting allows.

It is a myth that "all-wing" or "lifting body" or any such planes must always be risky and dangerous and expensive. It's become a straw-man to point to the XB-49 as a sole example of the concept, and say "it can't work without hyper expensive computers and you're all dead if the computers go out".

Too many designers try for the purist's all-wing with no vertical tails. Then they must add complexity and accept risk, and then they always apply extra static drag for yaw control. Designers who tried wing-tip fins show that it's only a little less terrible.
Nobody yet has made an acceptable regular operational plane without fins and rudders. Yes, I include the B-2 and hang gliders and sport planes in that.

Many designers have added fin and rudder if not substantial fuselage to project it aft, no separate horizontal tailpanes, and made safe and aerobatic and stable planes. (Too many: Cheranovsky "BICh" series, Lippisch, Fauvel AV-10 and the successful AV-36 series, Canova, Sukhanov, Arup (of Indiana), the Eshelman "Flounder", others.)

People tried to call Northrop's little "Avion 1" x-216h a "flying wing", even though it had booms carrying tails. It was among the best of planes in its class in all criteria, and a good deal faster than all others. Northrop gave up on a good thing, to hare off after finless planes.
Similarly, see the 1943 Higgins-Bellanca model 39-60 logistics freighter and the Boeing model 360-362 bomber series of the sort: Everything in the wing, and tails on booms. Greater range and payload than similar planes. (but they look funny)

Burnelli planes exhibited and other designs for tailed lifting fuselage planes claim much shorter runways, and many of them require no new infrastructure changes.

By Boeings own numbers, with same engines and fuel load as a conventional plane, model 754 and the military 759 would get x1.5 the range and payload. (Not said that it's range _or_ payload, so that it carries a heavier load the same distance or a lighter load greater distance).
After the Burnelli estate said they'd be willing to have it licensed, Boeing hastily dropped it and said then and after the work on the X-48 that they have no interest ever in building commercial or transport planes to a lifting fuselage configuration (though they're happy to take government contracts making military planes that are lifting body fuselages)

See also the more recent Lock-Mart proposal for a "hybrid wing/body" logistics plane.
They said confidently that it requires no new materials or techniques, has no stability or control authority issues, and compared to a normal plane it performs like the Boeing lifting-fuselage designs.

See also for reference the huge Tupolev Tu-404, and the partially derived Airbus "VELA" study BWB designs that eliminate any concerns for stability and authority, as did the X-48C by extending the center body airfoil aft and putting fins and rudders there.
A passenger plane for 20 or 100 seats can benefit from it (eliminating static-drag in favor of lifting volume) as well as the rather hyperbolic 2000 passenger hyped designs that everyone thinks about.

There are no new breakthroughs or great expense or risk in making these things. Some marketing execs say that "passenger acceptance" is the insurmountable hurdle, and "If it looks right, it'll fly right": is an absolute rule, admitting of no possible exceptions.