Sorry to hear that, Shy, highly qualified opinion is valuable in any discussion.
Open questions:
Are we sure that at no time did the flaps go asymmetric? This happening at the apex would explain the extraordinary variations described so clearly by Aerospace101 post #113. This, followed by the inability to retract them on the decent might just tally.
This begs the question - Would it be normal to have the 20% ? flap into the top of the loop but then retract for the decent because of the elevator issue?