The purpose of the MCAS system was to tame the MAX's very bad approach to a stall. As the angle of attack increases, the very forward and very large engine cowlings catch the wind stream and aggravate a pitch up. To put it crudely, the MAX's are ready and willing to do back flips. I am a private pilot that has done sail planes, aerobatics, hang gliding, parachuting. If I was faced with an aircraft that had this kind of dynamic instability - or very marginal dynamic stability, I would be treating that machine as a rather scary creature.
As an engineer that has been involved in the development of several mission-critical and life-critical systems (though none have been aviation related), I would certainly invite the cockpit crews to explore the MAXs pitch up characteristics with and without MCAS. In the same way that student pilots practice minimum controllable to learn how the plane responds in that domain, I would suggest numerous MAX simulator runs where the limit of controllability is approached and sometimes exceeded. And, of course, several simulator runs where each MCAS failure mode can be explored - exercising very prompt and delayed responses.
I certainly appreciate the dollar factor, but in a situation like this, the question is not what constitutes adequate pilot training. The question is what constitutes really great pilot training.