Sam, I'm trying to start a conspiracy to get this thread back on track and off directions that, in today's world, are simply unrealistic. If one credits BEA with the brains to solve this if they want one cannot simultaneously ascribe to BEA a conspiracy to hide the truth.
Those who finance BEA do not give BEA bottomless pocketbooks for this investigation. Taken to the absurd an infinitely funded BEA could survey every bit of ocean in the world before finally surveying what everybody thinks might be the final resting place of the plane. They'd survey it so that the rest of the world would learn more of what IS down there or some such motivation.
More realistically they have to convince the holders of the purse strings that any money granted the BEA will be spent wisely AND that the results are likely to prove fruitful.
In the final analysis the "target" is a very small pair of needles in a very large haystack, the FDR and the CVR. I don't think one without the other will prove conclusive. I'm not sure both together is going to settle all or even enough arguments. (People will still rely on stupid slogans like "Steel doesn't melt at XXX degrees" while ignoring details like most of the strength of steel is lost at temperatures considerably below melting temperature.) How much more money are the holders of the purse strings going to be willing to spend?
Consider some of the problems. We do not have a good estimate of currents below the surface in that area at that time. We do have some notion now that people have been down in the ocean observing the currents as a side effect of taking a good look around. We don't know that the CVR and FDR are still attached to a large enough chunk of plane to be found. If they are not and hit on a slope they MAY be underneath an avalanche where sonar alone won't find them. They'd have to find all likely avalanches and send something down there to excavate or use some means of exploration that would reveal the boxes.
Yes, I do think they should go down in the slightly less likely areas. It appears they presumed the plane remained largely on course with a deviation around the storm to the North, perhaps North West. Now they need to presume forward motion stopped much sooner, as early as the last position report, and the plane may have flown "considerably" off course trying to recover from its upset.
Meanwhile, somebody should be contracted to see how pieces of an A330 airframe, particularly pieces around the recorders, would sink. What is the density of the composites compared to equally strong metal parts? Somebody else should be contracted to use some new imagination to "guess" what upsets might be involved. The failure analysis tree is very large. And it may be that in pruning branches that look unrealistic the cause might be missed. Some pruning comes even before the tree is built because of prejudices, "XYZ simply cannot happen." A silly example is "God reached down and swatted the plane out of the air." What less silly examples were left off their trees? A fresh look might be productive, if egos could stand it.
But one failure I am not willing to presume at this point is a conspiracy to withhold and bury evidence. "Wikileaks" still exists. They simply cannot afford to do it. The downside is too great AND the probability of a leak in today's climate is close to unity. And THAT is the chief equation I am drawing to the 911 Truthers. In either case suggesting conspiracy is rapidly becoming as boring as it is silly and unproductive.