[chawco]

Even more than that, you pick up speed due to the nose down configuration. This means the forces on the control surfaces are so great that you can no longer manually trim via the trim wheels. This was, apparently, a well known handling characteristic of the 737, with original versions describing a "roller coaster" maneuver where you dive briefly to relieve the forces on the control surfaces and incrementally trim. Unfortunately, because of how MCAS was set up, it was inactive while flaps were set, but kicked in immediately upon flaps up, meaning that they essentially had no altitude to work with.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoNOVlxJmow&t=1008s for a flight sim recreation of this situation on an NG.

Everything here seems to be that exceptional pilots can (and did) save the situation, but that it's not straightforward even with training.

[rainbowzootsuit]

The "roller coaster" manoeuver: It's like reeling in a marlin, but everyone's life is dependent upon your success.