The 'feel' debate strikes me as a red herring sorry to say. Once again it comes down to knowing your machine and what it does. What you can do with the controls - being a professional pilot in fact (this is not a comment on the flight crew of AF447). Being disciplined enough to scan your instruments properly and pay attention to the information they give. These will be a more reliable indicator of what an aircraft is doing than feel. A pilot has to trust his instruments first and himself second - he is the random element.