Knowing all that I've come to know about this whole situation, including reading the transcripts of all the public hearings - from a mainly engineering standpoint, I have to say that I have always been perplexed and worried about the direction in which fault was placed.
As would have become apparent to the board during the progression of the investigation - the A300 had more than it's fair share of exceedances of limit load for the vert stabiliser. Strange considering what Limit load is supposed to mean!
The issue of how control pressure/deflection is varied with speed on the A300 has always smacked of the illogical (to say the least IMO) when compared with the usual Boeing method. When the issue of 'harmonisation' of all control responses through speed changes is used to justify the approach used by Airbus - it just begs the response in my mind - but B' managed it without making a particular control input ridiculously OVERsensitive. Why could airbus not go down the same route of load limiting?
As far as AA's pre-accident upset training is concerned - (with reference esp. to evidence given during the public hearings): I personally could never have had any other impression from that material than the use of rudder was only to be made in a smooth and progressive manner AND only after aileron inputs(up to full) had made no impression on 'wayward' roll. Furthermore, I fail to see how anyone "exposed" to that training could have had the impression that rudder was being described as a primary means of roll control - quite the contrary IMHO. I think the suggestion by the board that this first officer or any other pilot could have learned to 'play footsie' with the rudder after this training is an insult to anyone's intelligence, and disingenuous to say the least.
As suggested during the course of the investigation, the lack of totally reliable/continuous data about the actual accelerations and perceptions which the flight crew experienced, call into question the confidence with which control inputs can be criticised. I believe in the face of the available evidence we cannot know whether ANY rudder inputs were justified - or whether the crew even knew that, for example, in trying to counter pilot induced adverse yaw after a first reaction - full oscillations were in fact being made (IMHO due to the oversensitive mechanism).
I just hate the fact that I think the pilot was unfairly blamed.