@DC-ATE
How about sticking to what you know?
At FL350 and 210 tons my A330-200 (slightly different engines) would have had a barberpole at M.86 of 292 KIAS and a Vls 1.3G of 241 KIAS, a spread of 51 kts. A M.80 cruise would have been at 272 KIAS and the recommended TAPS would have been 260 KIAS. At either speed there would exist an approx. 20 KIAS margin to the nearest limiting speed, let alone the nearest actual buffet speed. That's a pretty wide margin to operate within and hardly anything like a coffin corner. How much more room do you think they should have had? I'd be willing to bet your fine Deisel 8 probably didn't have as much a of margin at the altitudes you routinely chose in similar conditions, unless you liked flying around in the 20's. And if you did, I'll bet you saw a lot more bouncing around than most of your colleagues.
One could make the argument that, possibly, the incident might have been avoided if only the aircraft was flying at a higher level. FL370 would have been well within the aircraft's operating capabilities and if reports here are correct another aircraft following the same route just 10 minutes behind at FL370 reported making no more than normal deviations to avoid weather and no encounters with unusual levels of turbulence.
Was flying lower at FL350 in the junk versus in the clear at FL370 a factor? Who knows, but it's a better theory than suggesting, without evidence, that a 50+ kt. window between limiting speeds at FL350 was an insufficient margin of safety.
ELAC