Let me bang on like a broken record about the very similar Air Caraibes A330-200 incidents (2 of them, handled successfully, the same way, in September of 2006):
http://www.eurocockpit.com/docs/ACA.pdf
In the case detailed, the "incident" lasted about 2 minutes, from initial unreliable airspeed disconnect to restoration of working FDs and APs.
During that time (and, to be fair, the way in which the a/c had been set up in the preceding few minutes to deal with icing and turbulence) the PF had time to:
a) safely and successfully fly the plane using "manually" set thrust and pitch;
b) consult the GPS Altitude and Groundspeed;
c) listen to the PNF going through the Unreliable Airspeed checklist (with a plethora of Stall, Overspeed and other warnings sounding);
d) decide that the Stall Warnings were inappropriate (and thus holding on to his thrust and pitch decisions);
e) notice that the Checklist contained contradictory advice regarding stall warnings.
So, what was different with AF447? Obviously, we do not know if the circumstances facing the crew were identical. And we do not know if they used the checklist. And we do not know if the checklist was identical. And we don't know why the crew took the decisions they did. But we do know that the Air Caraibes PF was quick enough to figure that almost nothing the a/c was telling him - airspeed, AoA, stalls, overspeeds, checklist advice - was going to help him keep his plane up.