If someone who knows has the time and patience, could they explain what actions would be necessary for the crew to get the AP back and what dynamic state the a/c must be in for the AP to capture control ? Reason for asking is that before the 'details' became known I rather expected to find the crew heads-down dealing with the computers but this seems not to have been any sort of factor.
Mieklour pointed out that if you get ALt 2 latched at cruise, you fly the rest of the flight in Alt 2 and you land in Alt 2. What that means, I think, is that you don't get A/P back, but I may not be reading the block diagrams correctly.