RWA-
be interesting to know whether Airbus, Air France, or the BEA had warned pilots that this sort of 'impasse' could occur; and indeed had occurred, as far back as Perpignan in 2008? I very much doubt it........
Amongst all the hot air generated on this topic, I think your analysis may pretty well hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, a lot of people may not be seeing things in quite the same light. Quite a few posts ago, I made the comment that a very small pull on the stick at high altitude, if you were heavy and close to max altitude, (should'nt be there in the first place, especially if turbulence is present, as the FCTM clearly states), could put you in stick shaker very quickly, together with a zoom up into "coffin corner" territory, (don' t hear much talk about that phrase these days, do we!)
Combine that startle factor (for the unprepared/untrained) with a full up THS and you can see why a certain element of confusion may have arisen. I think we will eventually find there is more to this than simple pilot error. Not bashing Airbus, (they build great aircraft, and I speak from experience of operating the type as well as Boeing), but nevertheless Toulouse will have some explaining to do here.
Regrettably, over the years, Airbus have usually blamed the pilots in most accidents ("they did not understand the systems"), but then they quietly go ahead and change some bit of software/hardware.