My knowledge of the Boeing 737 MAX issues is limited to what I’ve read in news articles.
My impression is that the problem was not the fault of the pilots. Having 10,000 hours of flight experience in Cessna 172’s would not have helped them.
Someone at Boeing had the nifty idea of having the airplane automatically correct a stall or imminent stall, which all pilots learn how to do very early in flight training. The stall correction feature malfunctioned, and the pilots lacked the specific knowledge of how to override the overly complicated automatic system.