From the information that has been published and discussed over many months given it does seem an accident contributed to by a crew not monitoring the performance of the ac/; assuming that an automatic system would safe-guard the performance and not being ready/aware to take over manually when the performance was compromised.
I have not read the NTSB report, but some here seem to suggest they have a slightly different slant on the event. Hm! I remember when AA stuffed a B757 into the mountains near Cali with the speed brake still deployed during an EGPWS escape manoeuvre. They blamed Boeing for not having an auto-retract on the speed brakes when TOGA is pushed in the air. (Has it ever been rectified? as per the NTSB recommendation?) They blamed Jepesson for having the wrong 'R' wpt as the first on the FMC legs page. That seemed like another slam-dunk crew screw up for multiple reasons. Why is it so difficult to say so?
OK, they can try to learn from the screw ups and redesign the a/c & SOP's etc to mitigate against a repeat, but ultimately if the human at the coal face screws up as the primary cause then why not say so? It could be engineering, ATC, the company attitude or the pilots' actions (or lack of), but is it not better to be honest with the root cause and then the best solution for future prevention can be found? If there is a technical hidden gotcha, as there seems to be here, then OK, let them design it better, but surely the predominant root cause should always be front and centre and not brushed under the carpet.
Maybe, having not read the NTSB comments, I stand to be corrected. if so, then I accept it.