Hey, SPY.....please KISS your ECAM.
Whether the crew followed procedures or not - a matter of some debate, it seems - they were not receiving sufficient meaningful information from the aircraft itself or from the ground maintenance backup pipeline to solve/ resolve the problem in time.
Dismissing the oil pressure/temperature indication is a bit facile. A review of all the great disasters and screwups in aviation history would show many where a similar 'red herring' provided both annoying distraction and the actual key to explanation of the problem.
If there had been a way for the crew to validate the correctness of the oil system (and fuel system) readings, through redundant independent sensors, or self-testing sensors, for example, then they could have taken the information seriously enough to change the outcome. The feature of ultrareliable and validatable sensors is not an unreasonable luxury in a big ETOPS twin.
Also, the aircraft systems 'could' have produced much more meaningful diagnostic analysis in real time with the sensor data available, or they could have provided the fuel path data itself.
With the Airbus systems philosophy, one cannot really have it both ways. This could be easily changed if the designers would thoughtfully (please) include a 'switch' allowing exactly that. The two-alternative diagnostic approach is:
Way 1 - relying on "processed" information provided by proprietary analytical methods and decision trees devised by the aircraft manufacturer. These systems advisories are touted as 'smart' and 'comprehensive' because they integrate a lot of higher-level understanding about the airframe and engines, but they often are woefully lacking in providing timely, useful information to the aircraft operators. The quality and reliability of the process data results are always suspect because the true nature of the calculation is unknown and unknowable.
Way 2 - relying on precise ACTUAL DATA, provided in near real-time, from the sensors and first-impression monitoring subsystems scattered about the aircraft. Analysis of the raw fuel-flow and pressure data on both sides of the xfeed would probably have permitted the crew to detect the dumping very quickly and thus to correct the crossfeed error. Certainly the availability of good raw data would have allowed some creative ad-hoc diagnostics on the flight deck.
I can find little excuse for the crew opening fuel cross feed and then leaving it open when logic was screaming fuel leak. This was not a failure of the system but of its operation following a mechanical failure brought on by poor maintenance procedures.
I fully agree. The aircraft's own well-informed logic system should have told them: "That is not improving matters. Turn off the crossfeed immediately."