How many Airbus a/c in operation?
According to the Wiki (slam it if you will) there are something like 5100 odd Airbus aircraft in service, of which in excess of 90% will be FBW using the 'standard' side-stick controller...
In the last 10 years Airbus has sold more aircraft than Boeing in 8 of those years...
Is the SS intrinsically flawed? Empirical evidence states not so. Accident figures do not support this. Academic study does not support this (NASA). What does support this? Evidentially not a lot, except an excess of hot air.
Artificial feel - there is not one single single or dual-aisle passenger aircraft that has anything other than power assisted controls - meaning what is felt through the control column has nothing other than some engineers idea as to the true control loading. Does that mean a control column has more connection to the control surfaces, versus a side-stick? I vote - No. It is simply different. The Airbus loading is spring-induced.
Left-seat/right-seat - pretty much everyone reading this post has a mouse sitting just to the right of their keyboard I'd bet. Switch the mouse to the left-side and leave it there for the rest of the day. For the first few minutes things are a little 'confused' - 4 hours later it will feel normal.
A lot of the discussion here seems to be reaching for some reasoning, beyond the evidence. The PF over-reacted at AP/AT drop, drove the aircraft into a stall, and then missed the recovery, with a fixation on pulling out of the fall, rather than flying out of the stall. Did the PNF understand the situation? Maybe, but whatever his convictions were, they were not definite enough to take command. Did the call-back of the captain help? No. Did it make any difference? No. Was this a sign that the PNF was not sufficiently confident - yes. Did this situation become one of "too many cooks? Perhaps so.