That particular test required close to a year preparation to set up (as it included physical mods to the aircraft, such as water bladders in the tail to move to center of gravity, and was being flown by not just any test pilot, but the chief test pilot for Airbus, famously thorough and competent. Categorizing it as a poorly thought out and haphazard test would be unfair as well as misleading. In my reading the aircraft was in the correct state -- but the software didn't work as expected. Which led to all the subsequent problems, starting with autopilot being reluctant to engage and through to the induced stall. My point is that the software is causing problems in the man-machine interface which changes the ability of the pilot to fly the plane -- and even a very experienced pilot, with months of preparation and focus on a particular scenario, can be surprised by the outcome, to the extent of crashing the plane. I like to think that this is recognized as a problem and improvement is being worked on; but sometimes I wonder. So little progress, in so much time.

QF would be well served to evaluate all of the Airbus incidents in the past decade and learn from that in updating their ops manuals -- which have earned criticism in several ATSB reports now for being in need of update. Seems like a simple and easy to do task, just requiring funding, and able to leverage pilot abilities in magical ways.