This string really provokes the mind's eye.
These are good points, and the possible use of driftwood is an excellent contruct of the possibilities.
We may, however, still be stuck with the real possibiilty of the placard and flagpole from the 5 months previous visit playing into this somehow. I respect the interpretation of the 'plurality' of Lambrecht's own latter-day voice in clarifying his earlier observations, but this remains such a glimmering reflection of an island just over the horizon to me.
Maybe that is part of the charm of this search - so much seems so logical, and so within reach - if we could just stretch a bit further and grasp it once and for all.
I also appreciate that Lambrecht probably gave spoken testimony to his superiors that we never got verbatim; what we got was his releasible version - which fit the official outcome: 'no survivors were found, we moved on'. That doesn't mean that every man in the room believed Earhart had never been there, it just means they had to face the reality of limited resources and time - and that no one was seen there to be rescued, and that the real possibility existed that she might yet be waiting elsewhere.
I think I've commented before that the order of the day was not, primarily anyway, to 'solve a mystery', but to 'save lives if possible'. I can see that as time wore on, the former (solve a mystery) may have played more into it - but I'll venture that couldn't have been the prime focus 7 days out.
I take Lambrecht's later comments as him still having some sense of mystery about what he saw as well; coulda been Earhart, coulda been something else. No gleaming bird on the beach, no one in evidence - if she had been there, she wasn't evident on July 9.
I remain charmed and somehow, oddly, empathize with Lambrecht's own likely sense of mystery as I think over all of this. Nobody wants to be the guy who missed Earhart on the beach; not his fault if she couldn't respond, and with only so much power to investigate, the guy has to choke it down that the beach is just empty in real terms of survivors and turn away. His ship had to steam on.