I don't see how you parse that out of my comment without some extremely uncharitable interpretation. I haven't suggested any particular change, nor that any particular change be carried out "casually," without due consideration.
Erm, it's pretty obvious something was wrong at the FAA, in that it seems fairly clear they let Boeing dictate terms to them on multiple occasions, and effectively overrule them.
The FAA's goal is to prevent aircraft related accidents. While you may not agree about the sharpness of their pencils or the color of their uniforms or some other tangential nonsense, flying is insanely safe in America because of them.
They're so good at their jobs, you should be asking what they know that you don't when they make decisions, not trying to correct them.
Historically, yes. There was a reason previously the CAA and EASA were historically happy accept the FAA's certification for new aircraft, on the assumption the FAA were very good at its job.
That no longer seems to be the case (given the fact that EASA now want to have their pilots fly the MAX before it returns to service), and there's well documented evidence (many news articles over the past few months talk about this) showing that over the past 10 years, the FAA's budget was drastically cut, forcing them to effectively outsource certification in part to Boeing to "self-certify".
The problem is that the 737-MAX behaves so differently from the base 737 that it shouldn’t be regulated as the same plane. Definitely a regulatory gap that can and should be addressed. Boeing built an unsafe plane and definitely exploited the issue, but the whole point of regulations is to stop a company like Boeing from shipping an unsafe plane.
