b) help make the aircraft a bit more controllable speed wise with high amounts of positive sheer by making it a bit more draggy.
Hardly! The idea is to avoid ground contact (i.e. crash) during the recovery. Whilst landing flaps are "draggy", the reduction in stall speed compared to a GA flap setting means less of a height loss during -ve wind shear when flying on the edge of the stall warning.
"No configuration change" including leaving the landing gear down is to KISS for all situations incase of contact with the runway during recovery.
The recovery procedure was developed after the TriStar crash in 1985 at Dallas
http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online...s/AAR86-05.pdf
Edit. Thanks
ImbracableCrunk (below) - you are correct.