All the Captain has to do is hit the trim switch on the yoke and the autopilot disconnects returning full control to the pilot. This is a basic procedure known by any properly trained pilot. Manual trim is available, electric trim is available and dinner with a flight attendant is probably also available at the evening layover point.
So maybe runaway trim simulations should have been run to make sure the pilots were fresh. I'm pretty sure pilots at any of the North American airlines that fly the 737 Max were proficient in runaway trim situations. I'm not so sure a lot of foreign airlines were. Also the first officer on the Ethiopian Airlines flight only had 200 hours total flight time. That is well below the 1500 hours required to fly for an airline in the US. Still for the MCAS system to create runaway trim situations as often as it has is unacceptable. Even with properly trained crews, what if the system deployed at a lower altitude where there is very little time to recover. The MCAS system need a major revision even after the currently proposed software upgrades are installed. Yes, 737 pilots should know how to handle runaway trim situations, but the MCAS system needs to be adjusted so it is orders of magnitude less likely to cause those situations.
The only precedent I can think of for a new jet aircraft to have such serious multiple crashes from the same cause was the De Havilind Comet back in the 1950's.
Yes! Fly the airplane by the basic instruments and controls. Basic pilot instruction.