This also presumes that an engineering-driven Boeing would have even built the 737 MAX in the first place. In all likelihood, they would have stayed the course

This also presumes that an engineering-driven Boeing would have even built the 737 MAX in the first place. In all likelihood, they would have stayed the course in building a new middle-market, narrow body aircraft rather than continuing to retrofit the aging 737 airframe. That's the real counterfactual here. Would Boeing have iterated yet again on the 737, or would they have done a clean sheet design instead?