I've formed some theories on this too, but more important to me is a step back at a larger picture in terms of avoidance. My flight-time was in the armed forces. I never flew in combat, or anything close to it. All training sorties, and some general ferrying of people here and there, with the obvious check-rides. Much later in life, I taught a course in business ethics at the undergrad level. I found that what it came down to was what I term 'situational ethics'. Applying some of the means-test to this flight and crash, I'd like to bring up a couple of things surrounding the decision-making of the flight in question.
1. What profiles I would fly during training, and check-ride would be far more discrete and cautious than the profile I would choose in a combat situation(would the mission likely fail if the profile were not flown?). In the case of this flight, I would want to know the pressure for completing this flight from the pilots perspective concerning his job, and his continued position. i.e. if he should decide the profile is not suitable for the mission what would happen to him for rejecting the flight profile?
2. If this profile were an established recurring run, and they had not had any issues previous, was the profile the best-case to complete the mission?
3. What cost-benefit would there be to an alternate landing site, and what customer impact would that have?
4. Knowing the risk of the low/slow regime of flight that helicopter pilots typically minimize, the greater exposure here would the pilot have done more prior to the flight approach to accept or reject based on; day/night, wind, visibility, weight, time to alternate. Maybe some other critical path decisions that I'm not familiar with on this ship, relating to how it handles the unusual(or normal, if that is the case) flight regimes.
These are the things that everyone who pulls pitch would probably consider, but the most important to me would be the perceived, or potential pressure to complete the flight, given the risks that are present, and the alternatives available. One of the tests I was given on a check ride was the choice to drop materiel right on the defensible position and NOT pick up casualties, or to fly another 250-300 meters, and land in a suitable(but still tight) LZ, offload smartly, and pick up what I could to get out of harm's way. It was one of the tests which got me thinking along the lines of alternatives, and the risks, which seem to be increasing, or might have been rationalized along the way as the flight profile was done repeatedly. If the previous 6 or 8 or 15 flights had been made with this profile successfully, there is every reason to believe that this one would work out. However, it is no guarantee that the next profile would proceed much better in terms of escape actions, should the feces hit the rotational air moving device, at the worst possible time(backward flight, OGE, non-translation speed, paying pax, night, wind, etc). I will say with no illusions that based on what I've read here, and seen on the few videos, this profile gives me the willies. I don't like having the willies with a stick between my legs, and my feet on the pedals.