Only The opinion of SLF, but the issue is not MCAS. The issue is the position of the engine relative to the wing. MCAS is a bandaid on an open wound to get around a rational regulatory requirement.
Boeing should not have proposed the Max, and the FAA should not have accepted it. It is a fundamentally flawed design.
i remember reading an article when the neo was announced which postulated that Boeing would not be able to match it with an upgrade of the 737 because it would require a redesign of the undercarriage to get the necessary ground clearance for the engines. So the design issue was obvious to that much maligned species, a journalist, from the start. Boeing and the FAA knew.
This goes way beyond MCAS. It is about the engineering conscience of Boeing and the independence and competence of the FAA.