The rudder cable issue is for me the truly scary indication of how deep the rot at Boeing and FAA oversight has become. I could almost see how the MCAS slipped through the cracks because the conditions where it would activate are very unlikely to ever occur out on the line so the fail modes never got properly investigated and thus the consequences were not appreciated.
The rudder cable issue is totally different. The rudder cables are in the direct path of major rotating parts of the engine. If the engine grenades and engine bits cut the rudder cables the airplane will almost certainly be lost . This doesn't require an aeronautical engineering degree to understand. The fail mode is totally obvious.
It is also directly covered by certification criteria, yet Boeing didn't want to deal with it because it would cost money to fix and the FAA management over ruled their own expert staff and gave Boeing a pass. I feel confident that pre merger Boeing ( ie up to the late 1990's) would never have balked at fixing the issue and the FAA in any case would have insisted on a fix.
The part I can't understand is if after the return to service a Max engine grenades, pieces cut the rudder cables and the airplane crashes, the resulting shyte storm will make the MCAS issue look trivial. So I can only conclude that Boeing management are willing to bet the company on a totally preventable accident sequence not happening, rather then spend what is the grand scheme of things is a trivial amount of money to make the scenario impossible to occur.
What springs to mind is the old adage about managers knowing the price of everything and value of nothing......