@Flyerbob
As I noted earlier, the core difficulty faced by the crew was that the standard practice of using pitch + power to maintain safe flight without air data didn't seem to be working, and the problem is that it won't if the aircraft is already stalled. With the airbus' FBW [fly by wire] system and passive stick, the crew would have none of the force or buffet cues through the side-stick that might have told them this. Thus, once they stalled, with no instrumentation or VH, this was for all practical purposes unrecoverable in an Airbus. Under the circumstances, at night with no visible horizon, even an exceptionally well trained and experienced professional pilot would have lost situational awareness and would not have been able to discern the pitch attitude of the aircraft. I don't see how they can be blamed for their actions in the cockpit once the problems developed in an Airbus.