Nice summary, TopBunk, I would agree with much of that.
If it gets to a strike, then I would expect a hard core militant picket group numbering less than 100, and a very large sickie being thrown by the majority, and some (but not many) reporting for work.
The one point to bear in mind from that, and has been raised on CabinCrew.com, if you call in sick (when you are actually healthy), just to avoid working on the days of the strike, you would be getting sick pay when you'd actually be entitled to nothing. That would be committing a criminal offence because you'd be 'obtaining money by deception'.
An easy reason Virgin could use to instantly dismiss those taking part in strike action but claiming sickness. And I don't doubt that they will be checking every case very, very carefully.