Without having the reference before me, I believe that the rudder limiting approaches between Boeing and Airbus are quite different. IIRC Boeing reduces rudder gain (i.e. a given force on the pedals gives less rudder displacement as airspeed increases); whereas Airbus maintains a fixed gain but limits the pedal travel, thus less pedal force is needed to drive the rudder to the stops.
To me, even though I may not have quoted the details exactly, this is a very substantial difference in control philosophy, and ignorance of this fact by this crew (and I suspect many other crews) is a VERY costly ignorance.
I visited AA's training center back when DFW was in early stages of construction, and they were just beginning the high fidelity simulation program. I don't think this degree of "glossing-over" would have been tolerated back then.