With regard to the F-GLZU incident of July 2011, it is interesting to see how long it took PF to mentally re-engage with the aircraft.
If t=0 is the time that the overspeed started, here is how it went down:
t=3 seconds,
PNF reflexively disengaged AP and pitched up
t=8 seconds PF extended the speedbrakes
t=13 seconds PF retracted the speedbrakes
t=24 seconds PF adjusted his Nav Display ??
t=53 seconds PF surprised to be at FL380
t=1 minute 18 seconds, PF trying to control aircraft thru AP
t=1 minute 42 seconds, PF aware of A/P disengage and at that point appears to be properly engaged with the aircraft.
If this is typical for long range cruise operations, then there is a major problem with the man-machine interface!
At least in this case, the aircraft remained in Normal Law.