"It must be possible to make a smooth transition from one flight condition to any other flight condition without exceptional piloting skill, alertness, or strength, and without danger of exceeding the airplane limit-load factor under any probable operating conditions"
"Approved operating procedures or conventional operating practices must be followed when demonstrating compliance with the control force limitations for short term application that are prescribed"
"When demonstrating compliance with the control force limitations for long term application that are prescribed in paragraph (d) of this section, the airplane must be in trim, or as near to being in trim as practical"
"must meet the trim requirements of this section after being trimmed, and without further pressure upon, or movement of, either the primary controls or their corresponding trim controls by the pilot or the automatic pilot"
"In the out-of-trim condition specified in paragraph (a) of this section, it must be possible from an overspeed condition at VDF/MDF to produce at least 1.5 g for recovery by applying not more than 125 pounds of longitudinal control force using either the primary longitudinal control alone or the primary longitudinal control and the longitudinal trim system. If the longitudinal trim is used to assist in producing the required load factor, it must be shown at VDF/MDF that the longitudinal trim can be actuated in the airplane nose-up direction with the primary surface loaded to correspond to the least of the following airplane nose-up control forces:
(1) The maximum control forces expected in service as specified in §§ 25.301 and 25.397.
(2) The control force required to produce 1.5 g."
Other than the fact that the plane doesn't appear to meet these requirements, then blame the pilots at your gratuitous leisure, but know that under the conditions that the crew had, it is unreasonable to blame the pilots for the deficiencies that are evident in the certification standard, the application of the deficient certification standards, and the resultant unfortunate design choices, and finally, the reticence to train the flight crew on a known area of problematic compliance, the reason that MCAS was incorporated in the first place.
The crew are the result of the system that we have all collective responsibility for, the regulator, manufacturer, airline, TRTO's, and passengers. It is an example of the inherent resonance of the system, no particular failure was necessary by overt action, it was inherent in the assumptions of all users as to what the real world was doing, vs reality.
If you need to blame pilots for being the result of the problem, than know that it doesn't result in any increase in system safety as a consequence.
An old Persian saying:
"Arrogance is the capital stock of misfortune",
Pand-Namah Tasnif Saih Sa'di Sirazi,
A Compendium of Ethics, translated from the Persian of Sheikh Sady of Shiraz, (1788)
The NTSB had the common courtesy of incorporating the human in the loop for Sully, yet now for ET and Lion it is apparent that it is only reasonable for a certain group of pilots to be considered to be human factors in the loop. That is ethically unjust and shows the inherent bias that exists in the observers and those that pass judgement from the safety of their laz-e-boys.