Perfect chain of event description there, Lou. Thanks for that interesting reading, although it sadly covers a loss of lives.

Can't think of any more worse circumstances when talking about plane crashes (except for terrorist attacks maybe): Telling the wife and the children the truth about the cause of this accident when they are asking about what lead to the crash.
"There actually wasn't anything wrong with the plane".  :-/

Sadly, the reports of e. g. the NTSB are full of such things which gives the whole human factor thing in aviation some more importance in my eyes.
So the aircraft designers always have to fight at least two enemies. The malfunction of systems and the misinterpretation of circumstances and wrong prioritization by the human mind when being in stressful situations.

I know that you are talking about all that "sissy" stuff from time to time, but I don't doubt that the human factors issue gets underestimated from your side.
Do you remember when the training on those things started in the airlines?
For instance, there must have been a day when the TWA CEO announced that some "practical psychology" is now part of all crew training efforts, am I right?