. I guess I just don’t get why on one hand it is very easy to heap scorn on Boeing for designing the MAX on the cheap and yet give a pass to airlines who want to hire and train pilots on the cheap.
I don't think the issue was that Boeing was doing anything on the cheap, it would have cost absolutely nothing more to have the MCAS system be a bit more failsafe-ish by comparing the two sensors. The basic issue is that Boeing promised something that was impossible, an aircraft functionally identical to the 737-NG but with larger engines in a different place. They ended up using software to simulate a 737 on an airframe that pretty much anybody could see would have different aerodynamic characteristics. They didn't do this to save money, they did it to save development and certification time in order to get a desperately needed product to market. The software fix was seductive -- it was elegant, simple, and Boeing had already used software to deal with a potential program-ending aerodynamic flaw in a previous model.
The desperate need for the MAX to be "just an upgraded NG" led to an engineering/management problem known as "the Emperor's new clothes." Anything that violated that basic assumption is not acceptable; they apparently went as far as to reorganize the test pilots out of the development program when they raised concerns. Using two sensors would have meant admitting that the Max was NOT an upgraded NG because if the sensors disagreed you had to turn off MCAS which meant that now you have different (and non conforming) flight characteristics. Rather than document the issue, they swept it under the rug and pretended that it wasn't there. This goes for what they told the pilots as well, which was nothing that would upset the party line. Refusing to acknowledge that the Emperor is naked even persists after the accident; this was not a computer failure or a programming flaw, it was a trim runaway like could happen on any 737. Why? Because the MAX is just an upgraded NG, that is why.
Now apparently even that approach has bitten them in the rear end, as by insisting that the accidents (!) were simply mismanaged trim runaways the obvious question is "how do you properly manage a trim runaway?" and the answers are not looking good for either the NG or the MAX. It doesn't help at all that the simulators (which is the only place to practice this very dangerous condition) apparently do not reflect how hard the procedure is in real life. At some point even the most dedicated Boeing FTFA supporter is going to have to stop suspending disbelief and admit that this was a pretty big engineering snafu, and not pilot error.