I bet if we look at the requirements analysis of MCAS, the developers just met the specification. I think the article makes to much assumptions about the state of the industry and developer hubris, but the decision of system design of the plane was probably decided before it reached developers. They might also just have a perspective of this one system, so the result is as expected.
Yup. The UX guys didn't apreciate how critical the software was and how half-baked it was going to be (and therefore require pilots to need to interact with it requiring good UX). The software guys didn't know that the pilots weren't gonna know how to turn off the software so they didn't know they couldn't half bake it. The engine guys didn't know the software guys were gonna half bake it. The AOA guys retired in the 1990s and had no idea the system was gonna be used for anything more than warning lights.
It was perfectly compatible with existing runaway trim checklist. The problem was that the pilots didn't recognize it as runaway trim, in part due to pilot error and in part due to the fact they weren't told the capacity for this system to create a runaway trim situation existed.