Willie
While I work for Boeing - aka "the Lazy B", I'm far from a position to make such decisions.
That being said, Boeing really didn't want to do the MAX. They fully understand the 737 is based on 50 year old tech, and wanted to do an new airplane. But Airbus forced their hand with the NEO. Not only would an all new airplane have taken additional years to get to market relative to the NEO, both AB and Boeing are pumping out 40 plus narrow bodies per month. Getting an all new airplane up to speed for 40 or 50 per month deliveries would have meant literally gifting thousands of orders to AB.
Now, my far from perfect crystal ball says Boeing is working on a totally new airplane for the 150 - 250 market - something far better than the 737 MAX and A320 NEO - and a step ahead of the C series. It wouldn't surprise me if it's not single aisle (if you've ever sat near the back of a 757-300 you know just how long it takes to turn a 200+ passenger single aisle aircraft
). Such an airplane would force AB's hand, and could bring Bombardier to their knees....
OTOH, I picked up several hundred shares of Bombardier a few weeks ago - already nearly doubled my money. I just wish I had the guts to follow my gut feelings. I bough a similar amount of Sirius a few years back - 5x return to date - if only I'd bought 10x (or even 100x) shares....