I read the whole thread, and in my personal and unqualified opinion as a mere SLF, it's quite clear that on friday, all the doubters of modern aircraft design philosophy and the conspiracy theorists will have a field day - regardless of what will be revealed, it will be either the fault of Airbus, the BEA or a big coverup...
So many people here already know what happened and don't need any facts to change their opinion...
I think it's interesting to see how many people either propose new gadgets designed to fix the "AF447-problem" or just see the modern reliance on computers and automation as the cause of the crash, but fail to prove that those "fixes" are more reliable than current "modern" technology. Because that's the design case, to reduce the number of "avoidable" crashes. Not just to fix the cause of
this crash, but to improve the whole safety record. None of the doubters of "computerised planes" proved that older planes are safer, and it could very well be that these technological advances (?) improve safety for 99,999% of the flights, and that "fixing" these methods might decrease the safety of 99,999% of all flights, just to fix the freak occurance on 0,001% of all flights. (All figures are made up
)
I'm not judging because I just don't know enough, but in my opinion it's up to those people to prove that on the whole balance, the safety of all flights would be improved by their proposed changes - not just the safety of those flights that encounter the same conditions as those on AF flight 447. So in my opinion it's quite obvious that the changes coming from this crash will be evolutionary (as in "bugfixes") instead of revolutionary.
But we will all know more on friday, for sure...