Three thoughts:
1) PP, thanks, you've obviously gone to a lot of trouble on those diagrams and it will no doubt be interesting to compare them with the final accident report. Just one thing we might all take into consideration is that it's extremely difficult to judge, from our distance, all the possible factors that contributed to the accident. It seems to be a given that the aircraft hit the berm and that, at this point, the tail separated. In such a violent collision our theories based on the scant evidence available to us are but chaff.
2) ShotOne, no intention here of getting into the overworking/exhaustion discussion. But stating categorically that the aircraft wouln't have made it past the trees some 300m distant is, er, too categorical. They might have, even with some evergreen boughs in the undercarriage. Or it might have developed into something less lethal, like the Mulhouse A320 accident from which most walked away.
3) SimBoy, tend to agree with you, "should have been" being the operative phrase. We all, sorry most of us, live and learn that what should have been could be a little bit better, had we thought of it earlier. Not suggesting here that Halifax should demolish the berm but yes, perhaps, the airport authority might give some consideration to whether the lighting support could be made a bit less menacing.