Mach effects and AoA
Trust me, I am very familiar with mach and AoA. I also appreciate a design of the fly-by-wire control laws that takes into account of all the aero crapola.
Until you have supersonic flow over the entire wing, then the basic AoA works like we expect. Once supersonic, we have a different shock wave flow pattern, hence the "diamond" configuration of some fighters' wings. We no longer have a "normal" shockwave front and have different pressures on the bottom and top and even parts thereof. The diamond airfoils have at least two shockwave "fronts" on top and bottom. So moving the wing or the stab changes the pressures and we get pitch authority. Ailerons have a more serious problem, but the clever engineers have figured that out.
The Airbus AoA versus mach equation seems very conservative, and I would bet my life on the AoA before the overspeed warnings and whatever "laws" and warnings that are implemented. I seriously doubt you could rip the wings off of the A330 if you exceeded the "protections"/"warning" values by .05 mach or 30 or 40 knots EAS/CAS/IAS. You might get some wing "flapping" as the shockwaves got in the way of the ailerons and spoliers, but big deal.
The shockwaves over the THS would be more of a concern to me, and I have provided Yeager's war story and the design changes to all fighters that resulted in all-moving horizontal stabilizers ( not the 'bus with a conventional elevator and the THS).
In all defense of the basic Airbus aero design, the sucker looks like an outstanding platform without all the FBW protections and plethora of alternate laws and such. i would take that beast and wring it out any day even in the "direct law". OTOH, I fully understand the FBW control surface movements and rate and mechanical/aero limts that are implemented. I would not like to fly the beast with a simple electric command of the control surface position and rate of movement. But I could!!!
As all know here, I have an extreme problem with all the "autopilot" functions and "protections" that Airbus has implemented that can get in the way of basic airmanship by the pilots and the basic aero characteristics of the jet. The jet appears to be well-designed.