JenCluse;
I'm happy you feel better, and I'm happy you're off the A320. Some just don't belong on the airplane.
As for cables and pulleys, I flew the DC8 and loved the airplane, same with the DC9, B727, Lockheed etc and flew the A320/A330/340 and loved those airplanes too. In the business, progress is as progress does; we can go along for the ride and learn to understand an airplane or quite reasonably choose cables, pulleys, tabs and servos forever. That's the magic of the business.
For me, as for many, the 320 worked extremely well, but I refused to listen to the mandates to engage the automation at 100ft and disengage it after landing. I know even then that the 320 doesn't work well for everyone.
As for the last kind of landing I described, of course it can be a mess - that's obvious, just like Sioux City was a mess. And if you have no hydraulics and no electrics, like in most airplanes, you're almost always toast.
But the emergency procedure was part of our initial training and, quite frankly, almost all of us got the thing onto the (intended) runway in one piece though a few gear replacements would've been needed! That was the sim. We all know that the airplane flies and behaves much better than the electronic sim version.
As for my FAA friend, I can only repeat what he said when we discussed the technique when the airplane first came out and all of us had questions and Airbus wasn't answering any of them. It was a long time before Airbus actually began listening to the end-users' questions and suggestions so we turned to those who did the actual testing and who didn't mind actually talking with the unwashed.
Yes, back to the thread!
PJ2