While I'm neither supporting or rejecting an in-flight break up, those searching for baggage should consider that an in-flight break up can mean a rather wide variety of things. Peraps the empennage came off and the rest remained intact until impact. Perhaps a wing partially failed, but the remainder remained intact. Perhaps the horizontal tail surfaces failed downwards and the rest remained intact. In-flight break up does not necessarily translate to hundreds or even tens of tiny pieces. It just means some type of structural failure prior to impact of the whole, which precluded the ability to recover from an in-flight upset.
You all need to be as creative in your thinking about structural failure as you are about drift patterns, ocean currents, ice crystals in pitot tubes and 180 deg turns. At this point all that we have is a mystery, therefore anything is possible.