Like I said above: federal prisons are run like shit. You're giving the Federal Bureau of Prisons far, far too much credit for competence. It's one of the worst-run parts of a government known for not running things well. Problems with the prison system and its personnel generally only come to light when huge fuck-ups like this happen. The kind of grand conspiracy being floated around is far more statistically unlikely than the fact that the guy hung himself because he wanted to be free and clear. This kind of shit happens all the time in jails and prisons. If someone really wants to kill themselves, they're going to make it happen one way or the other.

If this happens all the time, as you say, then these problems would come to light all the time, as you also say.  However, these circumstances are objectively atypical.  

So I must ask again: how would you account for this difference from what is known to have occurred (security camera failures, an absence of officers who were expected to be maintaining a presence, etc) from what typically occurs?

You don't seem to understand what an underfunded, understaffed clusterfuck our corrections system is. These problems generally only come to light in high profile cases. Otherwise, these incidents get swept under the rug. And when they do come to light, they typically uncover long standing patterns of malfeasance at every level of the system.

Other than bad PR, what incentive is there to change it? As far as most people in this country are concerned, prisoners, even ones who are being held awaiting trial for charges they have not been found guilty of, are garbage. If they die in prison, that's too fucking bad. They shouldn't have broken the law. And politicians, the ones who set the budget and make the rules for prisons, are in apparent agreement. That's the kind of thinking that ensures that prisons will always be poorly run.

My answer remains the same: poor management and overworked, apathetic guards. In the absence of hard evidence, that will remain my answer.

We should care about all of it. Less of the fact that he died, however it happened exactly, but what some are not taking into account is the big picture. This isn't so much about Epstein himself, it's about his 'business', who was tied to him, and everyone else involved, directly or indirectly.

If anybody finds what seems to be an important ancient settlement while digging, you don't allow someone to just show up one night and dig the whole thing up, creating a giant useless mess, making it next to impossible to properly investigate the site afterwards.

The hard evidence includes bone fractures commonly found in strangulation, but atypical in hanging.  Are bone fractures a known side effect of underfunding and overworked guards?