Amen Machinbird...
Sad for me as I read thru the pages of this thread and some of the official reports. Not being familiar with the airbus, I can only guess that the immenently qualified instructor pilot, TRE occupying the left seat was just used to his airbus taking care of his handflying duty of trimming the aircraft during attempted recovery from their low speed condition. Don't recall if the various bank angles were pilot induced in an effort to get the nose dow, or if they occured as a result of low speed aerodynamic forces...tho I suspect the latter.
Not wishing to go back and read the info available, I don't believe the pilots briefed what to look for on their flight displays or what messages to look for on ECAM (or whatever AB calls it) or what to expect or procedures anticipated in the impending recovery drill. Indeed sad that the chain of events leading to the catastrophe included the freezing of two of the AOA probes, and no direct warning to the pilot/s. Apparently there WERE subtle clues displayed, I think, "use manual trim" but it seems no briefing was conducted to actually watch the instruments.
I pointed earlier the pilots complete disregard for ATC speed constraints/assignments in any timely fashion, outright false statement of speed to the controller; which points ME to a nagging doubt that they had any clue about their speed as the Captain slowed the aircraft in preparation for the final event.
I wished from day one in airliners on the 727 for an actual cockpit AOA guage. What would be the harm, say one clock style guage with diamond pointers superimposed one over the other for each AOA sensor. I know, AOA information is only useful for the accident investigators reading the flight recorder data. Needs to be kept secret from the pilots. I don't think the pilots of the accident aircraft would have seen an AOA indicator on their final mission however. Perhaps an AOA indexer on the glareshield?
Yes, the AOA is displayed I believe with the various color bands on the speed displays, but I think they are calculated on 1 g flight. Actual AOA is dynamic and changing for various g loadings, ahh the good ol' stick shaker.