I think this also reflects that Boeing has moved from being a honorable company where good engineering was the first priority, to a company driven by greedy MBAs and PowerPoint charlatans. Those crazy ways to bypass regulations indicate they were totally pushed by a business plan that did not mind cutting lots of security corners.
It's sad, but I think many corporations, and in general most human organizations, go through this lifecycle.
Obviously, none of this discharges FAA from all the very likely negligences they committed when reviewing the new MAX certification you have explained so well.
It also means that they have competition: airlines are not fond of having to recertify their pilots and "flys like any old 737" was Boeing's main advantage over less outdated Airbus designs. Doing the engine replacement the right way would have created a pilot recertification requirement and thus canceled that advantage, no matter how much money Boeing threw at it. As much as I enjoy a good game of MBA-blaming, "fake it till you break it" is more than simple cost-cutting here. There's just as much engineering hybris at play when "can we do it? yes!" is heard while "should we do it? no" is hardly ever thought (same with diesel and urea tank refills). I see the problem more in institutionalized optimism than in penny-pinching.
It's sad, but I think many corporations, and in general most human organizations, go through this lifecycle.
Obviously, none of this discharges FAA from all the very likely negligences they committed when reviewing the new MAX certification you have explained so well.