Fact is that even if your brain is short circuited by fear of death, that's exactly in those moments that pilots should be real pilots, I mean resource to INSTINCTS, BASIC INSTICTS.
A "pilot" who hears the tremendous noise of 500 knots (!) and doesn't even touch those tho things in the middle of the pedestal (also called trust levers) to pull them back.... well, should be doing another job (and I put it nicely)....
LEM, with the greatest stretch of the imagination, I just don't see any part of Part 61 or the MOS that requires heroic competency to be present in all aviators seated forward of Row 1. It may be nice to find, and it does occur occasionally, but the system cannot depend on heroic intervention to make up for stupidity in the fundamental design. Part 25 expressly demands that extreme levels of competency, heroics etc must not be relied on to save the day, and that is the fundamental problem with where the industry finds itself with JT610, and ET302. I don't object to people maintaining skills at a high level, in fact that he highly desirable, but it is not what the industry has achieved or demands, and on occasion, it has bitten back, as it did with AA587.
The industry has a bit of a problem, and that is not going away anytime soon. The explosive growth of the industry and the nonsensical regulatory environment result in the current training and recurrent matrices, that cover the obligatory requirements but are not going to achieve exceptional levels of competency leading to legendary aerial feats; the training, system and design needs to be robust enough to achieve an acceptable level of risk for the industry, and that is the problem at present.