[QUOTE] does the autopilot still have the "Expedite Climb" mode? [/QUOTE}
It does (actually a flight director mode) and it seeks to match climb thrust to green dot speed (roughly l/d max in the clean configuration). The engaged autopilot will grab on to the flight director and ride it up, but I don't think you'd ever see it command more than 4,000 fpm or so, even on the lightest 319.
I think I could rule out 'expedite climb' as a factor in this accident.
I agree that waiting till the investigation is complete before saying you know what happened is a good idea. But I feel pretty comfortable saying that a 6,000 fmp climb was not manually flown and involved some serious failure in the autoflight/reality interface.