Pitch control and longitudinal stability
Hats off the Rudderrat for pointing out one of the unusual characterisctics of the FBW concepts that emphasize Gee versus AoA for pitch laws.
The stability that Smilin'Ed describes can be implemented quite easily in the FBW systems, and the plane tries to achieve the TRIMMED AoA versus the TRIMMED gee if you relax pressure on the stick. The system can also make the "move" aggressive or rather wimpy.
Both the 'bus and the Viper engineers went with the "trim to gee" approach, which has some problems, as the Rat describes. The 'bus actually compensates for pitch in Normal Law by adjusting the trimmed gee when not in level flight (not so the Viper, as it goes to whatever trimmed gee the pilot sets - minus 2 or so, up to plus 3.5 gees) . So with the 'bus in a turn of 30 deg back we get a trimmed gee of about 1.1gee for neutral stick. Kinda neat. In a climb of 30 degrees, we would get a trimmed gee of 0.87 or so. but here's the biggie.....
If the system loses the pitch/roll correction, then it looks like it seeks one gee. So RudderRat's observation is very germane. You can wind up with a plane trying to increase pitch even with a neutral stick input. In fact, it's an aspect of the Viper logic that "helped" us achieve the deep stall none thot possible. If you zoom at sufficient pitch, you can "fly" past the "protections" on inertia and have a plane incapable of introducing a useful nose down pitch moment, especially if the c.g. is far enough aft.
My personal opinion is most pilots would prefer the "trim to AoA" approach. The plane would closely resemble, if exactly "feel" and act like older planes. It would "unload" the gee if you were holding back pressure commanding an AoA above the trimmed AoA, and exploit the "natural" aero characteristics of the plane - really great statically stable or less stable as with the Viper.
I guess the engineers decided that the "gee" command approach could be implemented more reliably/easier using internal sensors of the FBW system itself. But even so, the Viper used the AoA probes for limiting our AoA, and it worked very well.