Originally Posted by
sky9
They could always increase the height of the main undercarriage and bring the engines down to where common sense says they should be like the A210.
I'm not sure that alone would fix it. And on top that would further lower the thrust line away from cg, i.e. increase thrust related pitch up moment.
The aerodynamic problem surely mostly stems from bigger nacelles plus installed more forward.
OK, lowering might allow you to move them back a little. but I'm not sure they are not so much in front also for cg reasons, in which case you couldn't move them back so easily.
What would have really helped are bigger tail feathers. And additionally that would have allowed you to move cg back. Which in combination with a longer gear would have allowed you to move the nacelles a bit back.
That would probably have been the correct solution. And with such an approach you could have taken the 737 into the new age. But that would have taken longer and cost more (in short term).