Confiture,
Forgive my ignorance, but there is something I do not understand here. On March 8th you said:
11 degrees attitude is optimum for all cases, thrust or none
.
Now if the object is to minimise the rate of descent (flight path gradient) at impact and if the 'best' that pilots could do was a gradient of -1.5 degrees (NTSB report), then the target 'optimum' AoA would be about 12.5 degrees (or lower) wouldn't it? If that is so, why are you complaining that the control laws "prevented" achievement of alpha prot threshold or alpha max?
For memory, the alpha prot. threshold was 15.5 deg below 50 ft and alpha max was 17.5 deg - both of these from the NTSB report.
I can see that the attenuation of pilot's controls that accompanies the alpha prot mode could have limited his ability to get more than 9 deg pitch in the time he had available for flare starting from 50 ft, but the impact on the Hudson was between 13 and 14 deg AoA according to the NTSB, so I do not understand why you think inability to get to the alpha prot AoA threshold so important.
What am I missing?