The BEA's "mission statement" published on the home page of its website, proclaims the following:-
The sole objective of the technical investigation is to collect and analyze useful information, to determine the circumstances and the actual or possible causes of the accident or incident and, if necessary, to make safety recommendations in order to prevent future accidents and incidents.
I for one, believe that that is exactly what they have been doing regarding the AF447 accident. Surely, "Time is of the essence", I hear some say. That part is agreed, but based on the evidence they have acquired at various points into their investigation, the BEA has revealed its analysis of that data in a timely manner.
The current hiatus is nothing more than checking that the "deck chairs" are where they should be. As the construction of the DFDR/CVR packages were designed to withstand the known forces of the impact and the depths of the ocean, the data they contain will be available once they have been recovered. IMHO the right thing to do in these circumstances is to consolidate and investigate means of achieving a successful outcome of a further search.
To do so, a huge reanalysis of all data in their possession is reasonable, and in the case of the early air searches, a complete re-evaluation of their effectiveness is certainly in order. I am sure that when all that data has been considered in its entirety, that a case can be made for the spread and funds required to implement a Phase 4 search.
The only "bone of contention" I have in what has been achieved to date is, that if the MoD and MoT hadn't had their spat over the L'Emeraude pinger tapes during the Phase 3 search, and the search had continued as planned, we may not be currently having this discussion .
mm43
p.s. The "actual" underlined in the BEA statement is a word substitution not in the original. Makes for easier reading (imo).