But there were scary noises, and one cannot be expected to keep speed under Vmo/Mmo if scary noises are present. Only pilots are expected to do that.
Those who sit in the cockpit and let the airplane accelerate to destruction while being distracted by scary noises are...passengers.
But the Ethiopian crew wasn't so distracted that they didn't recognize the problems. They verbalized it: we know this because the cockpit voice recorder summary states that they did. They identified the false data, the cause, and the correct course of action, and they eventually took the steps to stop trim motion.
They just undid them, and failed to fly the damn airplane. Like passengers.