Just a general reminder - MCAS and "autopilot" are mutually exclusive. MCAS is only active during manual flight.
While I'm in general agreement with comments to the effect that the MAX8 MCAS is an engineering kludge, poorly thought-out, and as such dangerous (in combination with insufficient redundancy in AoA sensors) - there are other ways to put a 737 into the ground after take-off. So I'm looking for a few more dots to be connected before jumping one way or the other - in this event.
I'm also not convinced that all pilots - robot-like - fly every takeoff to such an exact profile that, for example, flaps come up exactly and only this precise amount at this precise altitude or speed and such, on every single take-off. I do respect physical impossibilities, however.
"Pilots do the darndest things..." - apologies to Art Linkletter. But don't take that as automatically meaning "pilot error."