Originally Posted by
Loose rivets
A stick nudger is totally different and not at all what was required to solve the aerodynamic problem.
Well . . . but what, exactly, is the aerodynamic problem? We've been told that it's a pitch-up tendency in some corners of the envelope and that MCAS was required to create linear stick forces to help keep the airplane out of those corners. OK, but using the H-stab for that job is pretty radical. Also, as Grebe and others have pointed out, stab trimming is inherently slower than the elevator movement controlled by the yoke, so it seems like an odd choice for that reason.
I think most of us are still trying to figure out how any of this makes good engineering sense -- even if the system design hadn't been so truly awful.