Excellent contribution from the flight attendant! and this is an area where in my opinion things have definitely improved with people speaking out. I am a little intrigued by what RetiredBA/BY means. The concept that someone needs to confirm that the aircraft is clean is obvious. But does he mean the pilot personally? Most of the times I have deiced it was with engines running and I am unclear how you could personally check the fin and in most cases the stab. Going back to look at the wings in inclement conditions I have done regularly. But our manuals always made clear that we were delegating the inspection in most circumstances to the lead deicer. The deicing report is also verbal and then entered on the tech log. In this case there seems to have been a clear failure by the deicing crew.