Hello ZeeDoktor (re posts #3174 and #3144),
Am wondering if you read my post as carefully as I read yours. I am pleased you have now acknowledged that sideways displacement of the sidestick gives a rate of roll, not an attitude (angle of bank). You seem also to have accepted that the white cross (that you call "caret") is not present in flight. (By the way, it is used - on the ground only - to give both pilots an indication of the position of the duty sidestick, and the resultant stick-to-surface deflections.)
We don't normally deal with the absolute basics of Airbus FBW philosophy on this thread, but to avoid misinformation this paragraph of yours had to be challenged:
"The A3XX sidestick (control) philosophy is not rate but attitude based, i.e. you move the sidestick to the side (and with it a caret on the PFD), and the bus will keep the attitude you demand by pointing that caret. So, for example, you move the caret in the right hand side of the PFD and the bus will maintain an attitude to follow that caret."
That was completely misleading, as I think you now realise. So, in your new post, you now write:
"While you initially give a rate based on stick displacement, the airplane then holds the commanded attitude (with centered controls!)."
That statement is correct. Good. But you continue:
"It hence does NOT behave like an airplane we all learnt to fly on, also the only airplanes we ever had any *real* upset recovery training in."
Also true, and I never said otherwise. Returning to your original post, your next paragraph reads:
"When in direct law [...], it'll start behaving like an airplane you learnt to fly on... and you're in effect flying a rate based control system..."
It is true to say that Direct Law is rather "like an airplane you learnt to fly on" (stick-to-control surface). But that is not "a rate-based control system", as I pointed out in my PS. So actually, the problem for Airbus FBW pilots is the transition from the rate-based Normal (or Alternate) Law, with which they have become accustomed in routine situations, to the (roughly speaking) stick-to-surface Direct Law. I don't think we yet know if the pilots ever had to handle that transition on this flight.
You now say: "...one should never implement systems which behave differently from what one learnt initially." While I have some sympathy with that point of view, I think in the real world it is a tall order when manufacturers are constantly striving to improve performance and efficiency.