Yeah it's gruesome, and some of it's uncalled-for. But if you're going to speculate about what happened beforehand, you need to go on the evidence that there is. PBL would like to leave open the possibility that the aircraft was not in controlled flight. In order to do so, he needs to discuss the evidence for this. The only evidence that he has to go on is the physical wreckage.
CFIT has historical precedent (NPAs, Night and CFIT go together), matches the location (loss of control is indiscriminate of high and low ground, CFIT prefers high ground), and corresponds to what we know of the radio traffic (often there's a radio transmission after loss of control; CFIT doesn't usually give so much warning). Conclude CFIT, and then you can go about speculating what institutional, procedural and airmanship factors went in to producing it, and from there you can take your lessons, if there are any.
Fortunately for our world, and unfortunately for this thread — for this is one of the things that attracts crackpots, conspiracy theorists, aetiologists and ghouls to the subject — a transport plane crash is a very rare occurrence, and likely causes for an unlikely event can turn out not to be the case. Alternatively, vested interests can and do manufacture "likely causes" that aren't likely, or that are insufficient.
The state of the wreckage tells the story. Yes, I have a natural bias against archaeology: I think archaeologists waste too much time finding out too little information. And there's such a mess, it's hard if not impossible to make a conclusive statement about what was going on. Yet it's needed. Chasing after engines" may seem ghoulish, but if those engines were turning at the moment of impact, they are going to look very different from how the would appear if they had already stopped.
So, assume that the aircraft did hit hard with a positive AoA (CFIT while descending), what would we see? A big aircraft-shaped divot on at the point of impact. The structure would fail both in front of the wing box, and between the wing box and tail. The front part would continue forward. The tail would go downwards (and tumble), and the wing section would go upwards. (as in Sioux City)
I wouldn't rule out PBL's possibility, but I don't think there's any evidence that points to it as more likely.
Now, sorry for the interruption, please continue.