[Governor Dinwiddie]

I think the design of the 737 Max is fundamentally flawed. You
can't make a silk purse out a sow’s year. When they stretched the 737 into a 737 Max, they changed its handling characteristics in a rather dramatic way. Using computer tricks to fix it is a complete kludge, and sketchy as hell.

[corkoman]

I think the design of the 737 Max is fundamentally flawed.

The design is fine. The effort to avoid certifying it as a new aircraft design is what botched things up. To have it "grandfathered-in" as a 737 meant that they had to hide the MCAS that was intended to prevent stalls from changing the engine position.

If considered a whole new airframe it would have taken longer to certify but everyone would have a transparent (hello MCAS) training program. They got sneaky and it killed people.