A: This was clearly an oversight on our part. We hope that everyone considers Starfleet Engineers competent enough that they don’t simply toss a broken piece of equipment or machinery, they fix it. Yes, Scotty, Geordi, Lt. Torres, and Chief O’Brien can all detach a Malfunction in order to discard it, rendering the afflicted item intact again.

One benefit of the unintentionally simplified language used (“If you have a Malfunction, you may discard it.”) is that the Malfunction doesn’t have to be attached in order to be discarded, so that’s a plus.