Chris, thanks for your reply #1157.
I had overlooked the first point, but the recovery technique is important and is directly associated with perception.
Much of this thread has been concerned with 'why didn't the crew know that they were stalled' - disbelief, biased by hindsight, and now because 'we' know the aircraft was stalled, all that is required is recovery.
RAT 5 - I judge not, why would VMC change the crew's perception, would this be sufficiently attention-getting to change the focus of attention - would the crew have looked out given the mental workload and puzzling flight deck warnings?
Uplinker's experience demonstrates the difficulties in understanding the situation.
Classic certification requires stall warning and then stall ident. 'Warning' (stick shake) requires interpretation for awareness, but 'Ident' (stick push)- after Vss awareness, is a direct indication of recovery action, don't interpret; act.
I suspect that Airbus argued that in protected aircraft these functions are not required, and/or the EFIS display supplemented awareness, particularly if the protections degraded. However, neither were available/reliable in this accident, thus the modifications primarily address awareness.
I don't know the details of the Airbus AoA - speed computation, but other systems (MD 80, Avro RJ) were sufficiently accurate for awareness, and that the computation accommodated different weights and 'g', but neither were the primary reference for certification.
My dated military AoA experience suggests that it was primarily a warning opposed to stall identification, not used to direct recovery; constant AoA for approach, or maximising performance, do not exceed the limit ... ... loss of control, losing the fight.