Smythe, you have a point,;to a carpenter the fix is a hammer.
The aero around the engine/pylon/wing is pretty complex, and modelling is anywhere from rough to detailed, but the full detail takes enormous amounts of CPU hours even for a single solution such as RANS. To get unsteady solutions that tend to better approximate the real world is a whole bunch of magnitude greater in computational overhead. URANS, DES/LES or other sorts of unsteady solutions will hint at the outcome, but then they are also limited, unless the underlying model that is used to develop the mesh of the structure is able to move appropriately from the loads applied, as an aeroelastic model. That will dim the lights across the oceans to undertake, so the best guesses in the wind tunnel models which have their own problems go out in sheet metal or carbon, and get flown. The wings are not rigid structures, and flow occasionally goes where you expect, as often as not it does weird stuff. That is the world we live in, and that makes design an art form. The 787 was a surprise to see VGs on the outer sections, that is for quite specific reasons and that would have been annoying to the guys at TBC to encounter.
Flow control by VGs makes some sense on some issues, there is only a slim likelihood that alteration to the strakes could remove the issue on the Max, VGs around the wing won't do anything much. VGs on the elevator, and T's, Ls, wedges etc would alter the control power of the elevator, which may assist. Doing that always makes for a review of aeroelastics and also PIO susceptibility.
Repurposing the MCAS was obviously seen as an elegant and expedient solution, which is regrettable in hindsight, however the reason why that was done is now of interest, as if it was related to stall prevention, then there is a whole lot of issues that needed to be covered in the design and that seems to be pretty darn quiet.
In the end, the Max will be a good plane, it is a painful experience for everyone concerned, particularly those torn up by the accident directly. If the OEM grows a conscience, they will learn from this and be better for it in the future. The industry needs both of the major OEMs, so they need to get this right.
Icarus: "If you don't like software "nudging the stab" up or down then I guess you hate Tailstrke Avoidance inputs right? Or Airbus Alpha floor? Or Embraer stall avoidance?". There is nothing wrong with having devices, when they have been appropriately assessed for failure modes. The expedient action of the repurposing missed opportunities to get the risks sorted, and to make the system compliant with the existing regs however safe their protection may be. A stick pusher without an override function is effectively what MCAS had morphed to, from being a limited authority SAS. That is a big change and the devil is still in the details which remain obscured at this point in the public arena.