The trouble with situations such as AA587 is that if a person has never been exposed to such a situation at all, panic is more likely
I would have thought that before being accepted into an airline as a first officer the applicant would be an experienced well qualified pilot. he would then have gone through a full course on the aircraft type he will be flying. then line training in the real aircraft. Presumably during his flying career he would have been exposed to varying degrees of turbulence over the several years he has been a pilot. He would have studied for airline pilot examinations and researched accident and incident reports at the company technical library.
With all this background experience why would he suddenly "panic" in moderate turbulence and proceed to bash the rudder pedals from side to side?
Seems to me a question of basic pilot incompetency.