Pictures of a/c freefalling in a flat aspect are intimidating, the XB-70 and the 707 over Fuji aren't what comes to mind when entertaining the concept. What is surprising is that the airframe reaches a relatively reasonable 'stability' though certainly not what the designers had in mind. I think given those pics (and others) it suggests that larger a/c have a more inherent integrity of flight envelope. In my experience, the larger the a/c, the more 'benign' the recovery from 'unusual' attitudes. I think given the short time since the accident, BEA had a lot more they could have written, but for many reasons, held off. One assumes they didn't have all the pertinent recovery and pathologies data as well.
Will