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It might be related to the crash of two MAX-8 (albeit not American ones), after the same exemption was given to it. It would be understandable that the FAA would be more cautious.

Nice summary of the comments from that post, unfortunately zero people there actually know what differences or mitigations are in place for the 8 & 9 that aren’t relevant for the 7 & 10.

Given Boeings absolutely atrocious safety record with the Max, I’m not similarly inclined to believe a bunch of speculation about regulators being dumb

This is true, though one could argue the exemption shouldn't have been granted to 8 and 9 in the first place.