The MD-11 isn't a new design. It's a stretched version of a first generation widebody whose design dates back to the mid-1960s. Before the MD-11 was developed, McDonnell-Douglas toyed with the idea of a dual engine variant before settling on a three engine version of the DC-10. Trijets in general came about because the engines of the day were too unreliable and too small to work in twin engine configuration at that scale.
The plane which ended up being the final nail in the MD-11's coffin, the 777, didn't start development until the 90s. Of its three initial engine choices, two were derivatives of engines that were around when the trijets came to be. The initial version of that Rolls Royce engine was so late (and so unreliable) that it essentially killed the Lockheed trijet. The third option, the GE90, was the largest turbofan engine at its introduction until it was succeeded in 2020 by the GE9X.
Scaling these earlier engines up to fit an MD-11 sized twin was never an option.
When I replied to this thread[0], with this comment[1], both the comment I was replying to and my comment were talking about trijets in the abstract, not MD-11s in particular, and the current year, or perhaps as early as the 1990s, but definitely not as early as the 1960s.
Several comments, including yours, seem to have misconstrued that to mean I think the MD-11 in particular could be retrofitted into a twinjet. That's, uh, wildly mistaken, and not something I've ever claimed. I just think trijets in general are a design dead-end. Again, that doesn't mean it didn't make sense in 1960s when the DC-10 was being designed.
The plane which ended up being the final nail in the MD-11's coffin, the 777, didn't start development until the 90s. Of its three initial engine choices, two were derivatives of engines that were around when the trijets came to be. The initial version of that Rolls Royce engine was so late (and so unreliable) that it essentially killed the Lockheed trijet. The third option, the GE90, was the largest turbofan engine at its introduction until it was succeeded in 2020 by the GE9X.
Scaling these earlier engines up to fit an MD-11 sized twin was never an option.