The view from outside looking in: Boeing needs to start over, design a new clean slate single aisle. All this fussing around on how to thread this needle is wasted effort, lipstick on a pig.
I, and I suspect most of the public, still have a foundation of trust toward Boeing, even after how the 787 launch occurred, for everything up to the MAX, but how they handle this could erase it all.
Down playing anything= trust gone. Blaming anyone outside Boeing= trust gone.
(What gobsmacks me most about the NYT article is how casually MCAS came into existence, and how casually it was implemented.)
If Boeing did their strategy right, the MAX is a neutralization innovation in the market, intended to level the playing field in the short term, which only works if they simultaneously started development of a disruptive offering, a new clean slate single aisle. So they should be only 2-4 years away from launching that new one, right?