As a group of professionals, pilots are very resistant to change. This is not always a bad thing as our entire skills-set comes from a combination of repeatable experience and repetitive learnings. It does become a problem, though, when a good idea gets shot down out of stubborness before it can even be explained or understood. This may be one of those problems.
To be clear, Airbus (I speak for the A319, 320, 321 and A330) has always had a series of at most three pitch and thrust settings to be recalled in the event of Unreliable Airspeed. The intent of these simple numbers was to allow the crew to put the aircraft in a safe state while the appropriate checklist was accessed and more specific data determined. In particular, the "TOGA, 15 degrees" combination was designed to get the aircraft away from the ground if the airspeed became unreliable after V1 or in a go-around. If encountering such a problem in the cruise it has only ever been necessary to sit on your hands and touch nothing until reading the checklist. Common sense applies.
The PF onboard AF447 arguably tried to achieve the first pitch and thrust setting when seeing confusing indications on his speed-tape (TOGA and full backstick - hard to get to 15 degrees ANU in coffin-corner). It was this misunderstanding and misapplication of the memory item which precipitated the crash, not the presence of the memory item itself.
The same approach to the Airspeed Unreliable situation applies to Boeing aeroplanes, only now the addition of two pitch and thrust settings (replacing vague wording along the lines of "set pitch and thrust appropriate to the phase of flight") gives more easily recallable numbers to fly to in the event that the aeroplane encounters speed display problems close to the ground. If encountering Airspeed Unreliable in the cruise? Sit on your hands and touch nothing until reading the checklist. Common sense applies.
Airspeed Unreliable is a scenario which we all train for infrequently and can be quite insidious and very threatening in nature. Both Airbus and Boeing acknowledge that it is likely that a very high pilot workload may exist at the time it occurs (departure, go-around, manoeuvring of any nature, be it around thunderstorms or as Etihad found out when leaving Brisbane recently, due to wasp nests in the pitot tubes!) and so I think it is far better to give pilots a simple set of "time-buying" numbers to recall and execute when under duress than to ask them to create their own mental model for a range of thrust settings and speeds dependent upon a raft of external factors which differ on every flight.
I think it is good, responsible information to be added to a memory item and, if understood and applied correctly, should NEVER lead to an AF447-like scenario. Quite the opposite, in fact. In any event change is inevitable and not always bad.
ps - can't speak for other Boeings, but the 787-8 GE is "Flaps Extended - 10 degrees, 85% N1. Flaps Retracted - 4 degrees, 70% N1". I'm sure it has been tailored to type.
pps - I agree that we should ideally be flying to develop skill and not using the FCTM as a substitute for basic airmanship, but the sad truth is this; The almighty dollar, "world's best practice" and aggressive commercial risk-management are reducing the emphasis on inherent skill and development while increasing emphasis on automation-reliance and training-to-standard. It is what it is and having a set of numbers like this in a memory item is somewhat of an insurance policy against those who occupy the bottom-left of the bell-curve. If skilled pilots on this forum know better then ignore the memory item! Just make sure you can explain why you did so at the subsequent Board of Inquiry.......
