Since 9/11 we are seeing billions invested in security theater, and at the same time every half-assed businessman operating out of a shed in some third world country is allowed to ferry passengers in airliners.
Rather than all the baroque theories of malfeasance, is someone actually looking at simple structural failure through too many cycles, allowed by insufficient inspections? That Airbus was 18 years old, enough for a mediocre maintenance régime and a few undeclared hard knocks to take their toll.
Edmund