FDR, yet another fascinating post of yours; thank you.
wing down on the approach results in more unstable flight paths than flying with drift until the flare, and then aligning the nose towards the end of the runway.
Years later, looking at serious incidents on one particular type and airline, the aircraft was tearing up the MLG trunnions. The data analysis showed that the crew were routinely landing with high levels of drift on. In those cases, this was also happening on landings with relatively low crosswinds, but where the crews were flying slip, they were getting out of sorts, such that in a 7kt crosswind, they had full rudder applied, and the aircraft in a forward slip into the flare and touchdown. That was eventually resolved, and the training reinforced to comply with the OEM's TM guidance, de-crab in the flare or after establishing the landing attitude.
These are interesting comments. When we started on our "Boeing" (not really a Boeing; inherited from McD), the FCOM (written by Boeing) had nothing much to say about crosswind landings. Then, in 2010, there was a major rewrite, with a completely new section devoted crosswind landings which introduced the Forward Slip technique, at "approx. 200ft AGL". Later revisions changed that to "below 200ft AGL", but it was still the full forward slip. Whether this applied to all Boeings, I don't know, but I think was an acknowledgement that kicking it straight at the last second and dropping it on was getting beyond the capabilities of some pilots. See my comment above. It feels bl@@dy awful to sit through, but that's what Boeing now wants...
You seem to be into the FDM; an analysis of bank/angle pod strike risk verses landing with the wing down in a juicy crosswind using the forward slip technique is interesting!