Thank you, pontius, appreciate your insight.
My "why not max power?" question had embedded in it an assumption (perhaps off the mark) that the rationale for leaving the gear down was "gonna land real soon anyway, leave it down ..." though my initial instinct would be "clean up" which apparently is close to what SOP is.
However, I seem to understand that the gents in the cockpit had begun to raise it, and reversed it in transit. Did I read that incorrectly?