They are not “near together” the landing gear geometry is established by the sweep of the wings and the chord at fuselage join. The LG trunnions bearing is as close as physically practical to the intersection of the rear spar and MLG beam.
The b737 track is 5.7m. The A320 is 7.59m. So what? Astonishing? Since when has the B737 had a problem with scraped nacelles or crosswinds?
As has been explained by people with real B737 experience, the manual trim is very, very stiff to move when loaded at speed to the point that special technique is required - and that is assuming you even understand what the problem is in the first place - which they couldn’t since MCAS wasn’t on the training syllabus.
The MCAS put the aircraft into an almost (or totally) unrecoverable situation at low altitude and no BS about untrained inexperienced pilots is worth a pinch of rocking horse poo.
Try using any highly automated vehicle and see how YOU like it when something fails, even if you are on top of your game, the environment can get very confusing very fast. The B737 is supposed to be designed to be operated safely by the average commercial jet pilot and achieve the advertised performance when flown by said average pilot obeying the manufacturers instructions. Clearly Boeing has totally failed to do this in the latest variant of the 737 design.
As for the “new airplane” mob. It is difficult to understand how a redesign is going to make more than incremental changes to the basic B737 design. The design problem remains the same - which is why the A320 looks something like a 737. Fuselage cross section and engine position govern pretty much everything.