Correct, but it's more subtle than that. FAR's are prescriptive. To carry passengers a plane from the pilot's perspective must have that linear increase in stick pressure required to pull into a stall, otherwise it can't be certified for carrying passengers.

This is part of why the MCAS could not be decoupled from the flight computer as I recall. If you turned off MCAS, you'd be non-compliant in the wind-up turn flight regime, and when coming in on final if I recall correctly.

So in aerodynamic parlance it is stable, but with disqualifying flying characteristics that had to be mitigated via a gadget whose nature, failure modes, and existence was largely hidden from the pilot, and downplayed in the FMEA/FMECA. (Failure Mode, Effects, and Criticality Analysis)

This downplaying was specifically intended to keep regulators from stipulating enhanced training for pilots. Thereby saving money.