I know what they were DOING. We all do. It's the thought-process that matters, and can help others...
Surely this is where the human factors and psychologists come into it all?
It seems to me (and I've not read the report but will do on the way in to work tomorrow) that the thought processes of the PF here were of a simple 'get it home nature' and the PNF simply stepped into line because he didn't have anything better to offer.
Both crew were in an unfamiliar situation - even if they had trained for it in the simulator real life is different - they knew that they had engine damage (probably didn't remember that they had TWO engines but just had 'engine damage' going through their heads) and they knew that to land they needed to have the gear down. Maybe with all the alerts going off as well the thought was to keep the gear down to remove part of the workload for later on?
I'm not saying what they did was right, it was careless and against common sense. It was pure luck they got down in one piece but I do think that what happened on the flight deck was simple 'get it home' syndrome.
Just one other thought - could they have not gone to a higher power setting on the good engine due to noise abatement? Could that aspect of flying have been drilled into them so much that it override other aspects?