Yup it was a sad programme all right and I think it would have hit a spot in most non-technical viewers. Apart from the loss of life there was also the loss of a beatiful machine and possibly confidence in sharp end technology.
The spacer/shimmy theory is the first I have heard of it but I recall a sory that the French President Chirac was sitting in a stationary plane at CDG at the time and Concorde was heading in the general direction of the presidential plane at one point during the take off run...Shimmy ?.
Incidentally I understand that Captain Marty PIC Concorde made an attempt to windsail across the Atlantic in his younger
days and a documentary of this appeared on UK TV.