III Corps:

It's relaxed stability--it still has positive static and dynamic, as you noted in your flight experience. The downloads on the tail are just reduced, which is a drag-savings.

It is why the entire empennage of the Bus is smaller than a comparable Boeing.

This is unlike the F-16, where the stability is near-neutral, to occasionally negative (ie, the horizontal stab actually lifts). If the flight control computer (HAL) quits, you won't be flying it manually very long--probably long enought to reset HAL, or punch-out.

I'll admit the Bus is not as attractive of an airplane though--kind of blah on the outside. 737 looks sleeker.

At first, the non-moving throttles seemed wierd. And then I realized--why should they move? I thought about how tough it was to set EPR in the 747-200....those throttles had over 120 feet of cable from the cockpit to the outboard engines.