The 737MAX was still safer than air travel in the 1970s. Boeing definitely screwed up, but it's a mistake to overstate how dangerous it really is. It's still far safer than driving. Air safety has advanced to a point where we're capable of having almost zero fatal accidents, which IMO leads us to overemphasize each one that still happens.

Ultimately, the airlines wanted a common TC and type rating for very good reasons -- it saves money, i.e. human effort in pilot training, the number of pilots that need to be on reserve, maintenance training and staffing, spare parts inventory, etc. These are all laudable goals, and to simply say that Boeing should have designed a new plane is too simplistic. The real problem IMO was the contracts Boeing signed with very high penalties for delivering late or having any additional training whatsoever.

This didn't give the engineers enough flexibility or time to design a safe augmentation system, especially after the discovery during test flights that the pitch instability was worse than expected. That led to a quick patch-up job that totally compromised the redundancy of MCAS.

It's also clear in hindsight that the FAA handed too much authority to Boeing on the certification side, and that they should have been scrutinizing their safety analyses more. That is clearly happening now, to Boeing's consternation.