Penny for anyone's thoughts?
The simulation for hands off is highly speculative. Yes, it used the winds that the aircraft encountered (apparently) BUT the simulation results in an aircraft in a ~ 10 degree right bank on average which will have the effect of circling the aircraft back toward the storm and in any case, on a different path than AF447 took to get where it ended up.
To properly run the hands off scenario, about the best one can do is to do a long series of simulations with random turbulence injected to see where the most probable result lies. Maybe there was a fortunate circumstance in the data used to create the simulation and in reality the spiral dive would dominate the results. One thing you can hang your hat on is that the resultant flight path in Fig 64 is only a speculative path that starts with closely similar winds aloft and diverges from what would have been encountered had the hands free course been taken.
Dozy's statement that the AOA vanes cannot measure below 60 knots is not strictly correct in that it is not the vanes that are the limitation, but the down stream electronics that are processing the signal. Az33ab provided that information several times. Apparently that same box is also used on other non-AB aircraft so the problem is broader in scope than just Airbus.
With regard to Roberts lack of assertiveness, just how long did he have after being summoned back to the cockpit? Perhaps we are reading too much into his words when he said he had he had grabbed a little bit of sleep. Perhaps he had awakened out of a deep sleep and didn't really trust himself yet.
One of the things that used to scare me, (but there was nothing to be done about it) was sleeping in the cockpit while strapped in on 5 minute alert on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. When the alert sounded, you knew that the catapult would be firing you off the deck within 5 minutes. I wasn't sure I would be up to the task but the flight schedule didn't give you sufficient opportunity to sleep otherwise. Perhaps crew members need a certain amount of time to come up to speed after they have been sleeping. Did AF have a clear cut procedure that spelled out how long must be given before putting a sleeping pilot back in control. Think of the Mangalore B-737 accident. The Captain had been sleeping in his seat for over 1.5 hours , and was awakened just in time to do the approach which he butchered and caused a high speed overrun accident.
Sleep is one of those things that is necessary but needs careful management because it has such a strong effect on human performance if mis-managed.