Hello Dozy,
Yes getting all the knowledge you can is great in theory, somewhat difficult in application, particularly in the early 90's thru the early years of this century.
I can assure that no pilot I encountered in line flying over the decades and just a very select few in the nether regions of the training and flight ops centers had the vaguest clue that at less than maneuvering speed (AA accident A300 was flying at, I believe significantly less than maneuvering speed) that it was remotely possible for a pilot to cause the vertical stabilizer of a modern jetliner to separate from the fuselage..... particularly the latest flight control computer assisted aircraft. We were trained about the protective safety provided by rudder limiters, etc. etc.
It was not until AFTER the tragedy that Boeing, and probably AB as well provided information in flight manuals about weak tail feathers on jet transports, weak as related to ANY rudder doublets, and rudders only suitable for use in relatively low speed single engine flight.
You don't get any shivers when you learned that the vertical stabilizer of the aircraft that crashed in NY had already flown beyond it's design limit a fact learned by Airbus, but not shared with its' customer??
As to getting the most knowledge about the aircraft a pilot flies, I might remind you that Airbus AND Boeing BOTH were putting together composite tails in those early days with insufficient knowledge of the composite assembly process; otherwise they would not have encountered delamination of layers of composite material, which they BOTH used a bandaid technique of basically clamping the delaminated structures back together with rivets during the build.