The Seattle Times article made this important point:
“While it’s a theoretical failure mode that has never been known to occur, we cannot prove it can’t happen,” he said. “So we have to account for it in the design.”
He added that early published accounts of the fault suggesting that the microprocessor had been overwhelmed and its data-processing speed slowed, causing the pilot-control column thumb switches that move the stabilizer to respond slowly, were inaccurate.
Lemme said he was happy to learn this because those accounts hadn’t made sense technically.
When the first reports of this testing came out there was a tremendous amount of discussion and speculation about the FCC processors, how they got overwhelmed and the "fact" that the electric trim switches were slow to respond. Appears that discussion was all based on some reporters misunderstanding, so before the current discussion goes to far afield it might be worth remembering this. Even the best news outlets may not have the best information and it is very hard to understand deep technical details of this system without direct access to the experts and their data. Certainly frustrating as our understanding continues to evolve but a good caution against becoming to wedded to any particular theory.