I won't comment on the robustness of the Embraer construction, but I should point out that the 2006 incident is not necessarily indicative of that; the two aircraft collided head-on, and the relatively fragile vertical winglet of the smaller jet severed the outer third of the Boeing's wing before breaking away, almost cleanly. The Embraer thus was able to continue flying while the 737 was doomed. Swapping the positions of the two aircraft would probably have produced an opposite outcome.
bell-cot|1 year ago
Admiral Cloudberg - https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-fickle-hand-of-fate-... - says "nearly in half". But from the scaled diagram of the collision in that article, your "outer third" seems more accurate.
Either way - for anyone familiar with Boeing's WWII bomber heritage, the glossed-over assumption that the Boeing's situation was hopeless really sticks out.