To build on what @ggm and @siwatanejo noted. The 737 debuted in 1967, so it is 52 years old now. The 737 MAX is 2 years old. In terms of number of issues per year since the aircraft was introduced the 737 is at ~15 incidents per year and the 737 MAX is at ~10/year. But as @ggm notes, it's important to look at when in the life cycle many of the non-MAX 737 incidents occurred.
Another way to look at this is by number of aircraft produced. The Boeing website[0] gives production numbers for various classes of the 737. In terms of incidence per number of aircraft delivered the non-max 737s have 0.082 incidents per delivered aircraft while the 737 MAX has 0.05 incidents per delivered aircraft.
Both of those suggest that the 737 MAX may not be any worse than the non-max 737s, but a more careful statistical analysis is probably necessary to draw strong conclusions.
[0] http://active.boeing.com/commercial/orders/displaystandardre...
The problem might not be with the plane per se but rather with Boeing rushing a bit and relying on the fact that “it basically the same plane but better so why would there be issues”.
"all new systems have bugs. this may not be unusual"
The 737 Max is an augmented version of the original.
