Hi BOAC;
Re, "about 200 posts ago", yes, understand what you're saying but in the absence of data from the recorders and the cryptic messages from the ACARS, we are collectively "kicking tin", solving an aircrash the old-fashioned way.
I think most appreciate that there are very good people who are similarly kicking tin in South America from the actual parts and not the photos and could tell us in a few moments what it has taken us 200 posts to explore.
But neither that has occured nor have more definitive photos appeared; I discount the importance of the discussion from the point of view that "we" are not about to solve this mystery because we can't, and if we do it would be by serendipity and not finding "the" 'smoking gun', (to use an atrocious media metaphor). But we can posit what is reasonable to each and let the emerging evidence sort out theory.
Aileron, elevator, flap, leading edge behind the slat?...it doesn't matter. Mid-air breakup or impact of an intact structure with the sea and subsequent breakup - there are arguments to be made everywhere in the absence of experience on this side, and substantive evidence on the other. We're just kicking tin.