Creative Speculation

> ... that it definitely would have happened has not been accomplished by Bazant. He has done some somewhat fancy calculations but hasn't demonstrated the relationship between those calculations and the real event. He assumed the relationship to be that of a limiting case but he hasn't shown why that has to be the case.

That's why I say that you've never understood his argument. What his calculations show is that even if all of the columns had been able to absorb a maximum amount of energy by buckling, that would have not have been nearly enough to halt the collapse, and all the "real event" failure modes would have absorbed even less energy. Arguing about how his simplified model is not "realistic" completely misses the point: His argument is that there is no "realistic" scenario that could have possibly absorbed all that energy. The only challenges I've seen to that argument, which certainly is based on engineering principles, are based on hand-waving assertions, imaginary physics and personal incredulity.