Just a comment from someone who has nothing to contribute from a technical or political perspective however,
I personally have never travelled on a "Max 8", and never will. There was just so much subterfuge from Boeing and the FAA about the issues, not to mention airlines and politicians, that I could not even begin to unravel it all. Even on the PPrune, contributors were and still are putting alternative perspectives and very different ideas about what the problems really were.
In the Max 8 situation, I saw additional crew training, disabling of functionality, etc., as workarounds, but again no proper fix. The politics and technical aspects are still being discussed here and elsewhere. No one appears to be in full agreement as to whether the aircraft is really safe to fly or not. This led me to think that the problem had been dumped on pilots, introducing another level of "what do we have do now"
As with the B787 battery fires, putting them in a box was never a solution but a workaround to get aircraft delivered and flying. Normally a workaround gets fixed. To date, the workaround remains, but no fix. How did these issues get past the FAA.
I am fully aware that there is an acceptable level of failure given survivability, catastrophic failure vs revenue and known punter acceptance of risk. A vast majority of punters are quite prepared to ignore any risks and go for price and convenience. Should they be thinking this way in regard to this, and other aircraft issues?
I look forward to an unequivocal statement that these issues are definitely fixed.
IG