Many other 320s had the close shave? How many 737s have been lost due to rudder hardover?
Whenever somebody fouls up in an Airbus they immediately blame 'the technology'. Why didn't we seem the same damning of the 757 after 'the technology' flew a 757 into a mountain in Cali? If you tell the autopilot to do daft things it'll do them unerringly. It's not a substitute for airmanship and common sense.
In the same period from first flight, the 737 suffered three hull losses: one was CFIT on an attempted landing with visibility below minima; the other two (1. singe engine failure past V2, Captain throttled up, but noticed no engine response, aborted T/O at 50ft AGL resulting in an overrun; 2. on a non-precision approach, letting the airspeed and altitutde drop -- ordered to go around, they throttled up and raised flaps), are likewise incidents of operator error, but in which one might speculate that the pilots' experience on DC-6/7s did not help them with the response and acceleration characteristics of first-generation jets.
In the same time, there are 4 A320 hull losses. Once again, to any reasonable person, operator error is the cause -- dumb things that people do from time to time. But an unfamiliar interface philosophy can and does help people do dumb things, particularly if the years of training the operators have received in the past now becomes negative training.
What's amazing about the A320 is that, even with an airshow crash a few months after its certification, it managed to sell pretty well.
It took the 757 13 years to crash. That might be why people don't think immediately of automation-related crashes with it; or maybe it's just that it doesn't feature a full glass cockpit and fly-by-wire control system.
Technological advance has its pitfalls, above all when "experienced" humans are thrown in the mix. For the A380, I'm sure Airbus has many competent people working on trying to find the problems before fate does. But the stakes are high, especially since the pride of European Industry is riding on this. The closest parallels to such political stake being put in an airliner are the Concorde and the Tu-144.