Hi Old Carthusian,
One, of course, welcomes a spirit of inquiry but one is forced to question why so many otherwise rational people are so excised by the possibility that the flight crew got things wrong and that this was the only reason for the crash.
The Flight Crew Training Manual has this quote in Abnormal Attitudes Section:
"The effectiveness of fly-by-wire architecture, and the existence of control laws, eliminate the need for upset recovery maneuvers to be trained on protected Airbus aircraft."
I think that might be changed.