As a non-pilot, my take on this discussion is that with better training and more information, these pilots could have overcome the deficiencies in the flight control system.
I do not ever want to fly on a plane where the pilots have to fight the aircraft for control in normal flight or turn off key flight control systems in order to avoid crashing. This sounds like an inherently unsafe aircraft if it is that vulnerable to failure.
Yes, the pilots should have known better, but no, they should never have been put into that position on a commercial airliner with hundreds of lives at stake. Clearly the MCAS system was malfunctioning and the pilots were fighting unsuccessfully to keep it from crashing their aircraft. Sounds like a system with inadequate safeguards combined with lack of pilot training, maybe a criminal failure by Boeing to disclose the extent of these issues to operators of its planes.


"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" -- Mark 8:36