Thanks for the great summary. I also read the full BEA report which was very informative.

Is there ever a situation in a commercial plane where a stall would be a good thing? My non-pilot brain is trying to figure out why the plane would allow a stall even in alternate law mode.

I'm sure the Airbus user interface designers know what they are doing, but wouldn't it be possible to make stall protection always enabled, and then add a failsafe requiring both pilots to press a button to override stall protection? Then they would both have to consciously do a physical act to enter this dangerous state.