The elephant in the room is that we made requirements for getting a completely new plain design into the market so expensive and time-consuming, that Boeing cut corners and reused an existing design to get around the process.
Giving you the benefit of the doubt about the approval process for new plane designs, what does that have to do with the more directly relevant cost-cutting that Boeing pushed for: minimizing pilot training on the MAX system?
It is not pilot training. The root problem is that Boeing and Airbus are currently retrofitting larger engines into old airframes at the cost of pitch stability, when what they should be doing if safety was their primary concern is change the airframe to accommodate the larger engines.
Boeing in particular was under pressure from the more fuel efficient Airbus A320neo, and they needed bigger engines (larger fans) to compete on fuel efficiency. Those large engines don't fit under the 737 airframe, but getting a new airframe approved is time-consuming. So Boeing placed the bigger engines more forward from the wing, resulting in flight instability and pitch-up.
Boeing tried to fix that problem with software, but, as became apparent recently, weren't very successful with it.
When you make a product that will take billions of people 8 miles high in the sky, you need to make it as safe as possible, at whatever the cost will be. If you take the risk and the cost in consideration, the cost is low.
I don't have a problem with the requirements. I'm just saying that if passing the requirements is so time-consuming and expensive that companies start cutting corners to get around the approval process, the approval process just became worthless.
I'm pretty sure the requirements are fine, but the process is not streamlined and hence avoided whenever possible.
> I'm just saying that if passing the requirements is so time-consuming and expensive that companies start cutting corners to get around the approval process
You don't get to stay in business in a regulated industry with an attitude like that. What's next? Medical device manufacturers cutting corners because the regulations are too onerous? Regulations create a level playing field: all entrants get to abide by the rules. Or at least, that's how it should be. The FAA turning a blind eye here is as much a part of the problem as Boeing.