I guess what I am really alluding to is would the outcome in this instance have been improved if the gear remained down to absorb the initial energy at impact
Yes, I agree with you that even if they had reached TDP, the logic behind early retraction is not clear, although another poster suggested it has a low gear limit airspeed (which I queried and can only assume is related to it being electrically actuated, not hydraulically). I also agree that the outcome of a heavy landing on the undercarriage is likely to have been different to what actually happened. However, when you look at the Kenya Police AW139 accident where they all survived from a similar rate of descent - also with the gear retracted in a hover - and the relatively low level of obvious structural deformation in the early photos taken before the fire really took hold, in this incident - I shudder to think what was going on inside on the ground.