Safety
1. No one wants to go back to the good old days. Repeating that eternally doesn't make it true.
2. If you pretend that there is no safety case basically takes you out of the discussion equation.
3. Arguing that even on the other planes some guys crashed is only an infantile argument, not a valid one (look Mama, he did it too ...).
Look at the one in question, with its technology, try to fix that and then go on to the other.
You need to understand one thing:
To really and objectively judge if there is a safety issue, you need to have operated both systems (with and without feedback/driveback). Many pilots who actually have, joined us who ask to have all the new technology kept in the systems, but add tactile feedback to Airbusses. For the sake of enabling the pilot to better do what he is kept for in a modern airliner.
No engineer, no FS pilot, not even PPL pilots would have the real time experience of both designs.
This should not be taken as arrogance, but as sheer fact.
In science and technology there is no such thing as "that's the way it is, adapt or leave" (didn't I hear such cr@p before? Right, it was something like "love it or leave it").
Science has to try different approaches, otherwise its results mean zilch.
I miss the differentiated approach to this particular issue. Instead of stubbornly denying anything could be missing, why not try and install such devices on a trial aircraft. Boeing had a sidestick with driveback developped, only to have the United pilots request back the yoke (now here is a classic case of what you described Safety, I admit and condemn).
Get it and install it.
This aircraft could then be evaluated by all sides in such replicated upsets.
I would certainly volunteer and go for such test for free.