I believe that very few Air NZ Captains of the time would have felt comfortable descending to 1500ft, clean, at 260kts, with no VHF reception, no UHF reception, and the weather that was reported at the time. You on the other hand believe that "quite possibly" all of the Air NZ Captains would have chosen to do this.
I'm thinking Framer remains intent on attempting to dissect conjecture. Ad nauseam. Is this a case of giving unrealistic attention to hypotheticals?
We all know why they were not where they thought they were. There can be no doubt whatever that Justice Mahon and Captain Gordon Vette spent many many hours and days and nights agonising is not too strong a word, over a reconstruction of events based on hard evidence. Nobody had a better handle on the facts. Yet thirty-seven years later the revisionists and the knockers are thick at the door. Mahon, Vette, Chippendale, Davis all are now deceased. And yet in some ways it seems the ashes still are warm. Perhaps a little R.I.P. would not be out of place. And for all those souls lost that fateful day no expression of empathy for their families will ever begin to touch the surface.