How the 737 MAX 10 landing gear works

Here's Gary Hamatani, chief project engineer for Boeing's 737 MAX program, explaining that they needed the main landing gear to fit the existing wheel wells: [VIDEO] I find it very illustrative, as it contains the keywords that are at issue here: "we wanted to preserve commonality", "from a pilot's perspective there's absolutely nothing different", etc.

Not "perhaps". It actually was designed for the 737 MAX, which comes in 4 lengths. Only the long one gets the fancy gear. Short video with gear model in action: [VIDEO] [LINK] Scroll down for a nice diagram: [LINK]

Because you then need longer and heavier landing gear, which you need to fit somewhere in the plane as they retract. This is a ripple effect where you probably need to redesign the complete airframe, from fuselage to the wings. They actually cleverly modified the landing gear to gain a bit of heigth, but it was not enough: [VIDEO]

Also the 737-10 does sit higher: [LINK] Watch the video from your link. The landing gear only extend on rotation. When it's on the ground the 737 MAX 10 sits at the same height as every other 737 MAX. [VIDEO]