This is still a bit unclear to me. It's possible that it was originally intended to provide equivalent handling characteristics to the NG, but after flight tes

This is still a bit unclear to me. It's possible that it was originally intended to provide equivalent handling characteristics to the NG, but after flight testing, the magnitude of the MCAS correction increased by over 4X. It's possible that based on the predicted performance, the MAX would have met FAR 25 but not had equivalent handling to the NG, but after flight testing, MCAS took on a more important role in making the MAX certifiable at all.