Unless you have a type rating in an MD-80 and thousands of hours, you shouldn't be talking. Both of these pilots were very experienced and did everything they could.
I think you guys are being too hard on spallanzani, particularly in light of the excerpt he quoted above. His initial comment on changing the aircraft configuration might have seemed out of line at the time, lacking any greater context, but in light of the quoted excerpt, it does not seem to me to be an unreasonable springboard for further discussion.
I doubt there's anyone here who has any hours in an MD-80 at all, and for those that may, I'm sure the lessons that can be learned have been been discussed already, in other, more professionally oriented venues.
That being said, I don't think it's out of bounds to discuss the accident, and the results of the investigation here. Most of us may not bring thousads of hours of in-type, or on-position experience to *any* of these discussions, but I think there exists the potential for any of us to learn *something* useful, or to refine or broaden our points of view, simply through the exchange of ideas.