I am not an expert by ay means ...I have 6000 hours in the MD, with more than half as Captain. The md-11 is very advanced and wonderful plane to fly. It handles nicely but I cant deny statistics and obviously when they cut 40% of the tail off it became less stable.
I do think one contributing factor is the MD-11 often has the nose rise on landing with spoiler deployment. LSAS is a partial fix but still has tendency to do this. I remember one of my first landings I thought we bounced and were airborne again......actually mains are on ground but you need to counter this and push nose down. Another difference on MD-11 is you cant go into reverse fully until nose wheel is on ground, so again your pushing nose down more rapidly.
I think often with many small bounces that pilots are in the habit of pushing nose down maybe not knowing they are airborne....if the plane is actually airborne this unloads the wing and sets up for a much harder bounce off the nose.
In most cases the plane lands well. I actually prefer heavy weight landings vs very light weight. In some cases such as a crosswind, and at 50 feet you kick in rudder and start slip the drag increases greatly and simultaneously the auto-throttles start a retard....that can often set up a high sink rate that needs to be countered with thrust.
Its hard not to love that plane, albeit she is like a latina woman and may kill you while sleeping.