Pardon my French, but seeing that photo makes me fully appreciate two things: 1. Just how incredibly low 737 sits to the ground (obviously a feature from back in the days when luggage was manually loaded), and 2. How anyone would think pushing those enormous engines forward like that could be any less disruptive of its proven design than lengthening the undercarriage to give them the clearance they so desperately need.
Death of a thousand cuts. Indeed. Hope the monster never flies again.
People, not luggage. Specifically, the 737 was designed to cover short-haul routes between regional airports that didn't have gates, where people had to get on the plane by walking up portable steps.
Boeing never expected the 737 to be the low-cost plane of choice between major aviation hubs.
Here is a side by side comparison with an a320: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/61161/is-there-...
I've read (but not confirmed) one of the other things keeping the 737 so low to ground is the type of emergency exit used. Extending the gear so that the whole mess sits higher off the ground would require new exits and a ton of extra things to certify.
On the other hand, building a plane so aerodynamically unsound that it cratered 346 customers the moment it went out the door is the very textbook definition of “false economy”. One that Boeing itself will be paying for for years to come; even as those who made all the actual decisions gently golden-parachute to the ground.