But the guys writing the code and making those changes (and their management) don't really understand the airworthiness impact.
Some of the later news makes me wonder how much they cared. Not that they are unfeeling monsters, but that they cared about something else more than airworthiness. Even the dullest manager involved in the whole MCAS hack debacle had to realize that they were making a plane that was less airworthy than its predecessor. "Oh, it is just like runaway trim" does not negate the fact that they have just made "runaway trim" much more likely, and they knew it.