I wouldn't say the DC-10 problems of the 1970s forced McDonnell-Douglas out of the airliner business. They continued in business into the 1990s before being acquired by Boeing. The DC-10 itself was in passenger service until just a few years ago, and is still flown in freighter and military configurations.
The DC-10's legacy is really one of bad timing more than anything. Its direct competitor, the L-1011 suffered a very short production run for many of the same reasons, none of which involved safety.
The 1980s ushered in a new era of twin engined widebody aircraft and the phasing out of the flight engineer. These two trijets were consequently a difficult sell, although the MD-11 was competitive with the 747 briefly in the early to mid 90s.
The last DC-10 airliner was made in the 80s. The 747 is still in production. People aren't buying tickets to fly FedEx so the safety perception isn't as big an issue.
Statistically the 747 is 6x safer than the DC10, and its figures are distorted by the Canary islands collision that had nothing to do with airworthiness.
