SASless (BTW where is that nice lady that always called you SASSY Darling), you are certainly right, the root cause of the accident has nothing to do with VRS or overpitching. Robbiee said it, FH1100 and others. But VRS is such a nice subject to disagree on. And in the final report, there will be the reason, why he choose that kind of approach. Maybe it was mandatory, or he was confident enough to be sure to pull it of? We will see.
The rotor does not care which direction you go to get out of VRS, but do you really want to bring the disk closer to the tail boom by going backwards, when flapping is easily double the normal amplitude? Even worse with gusty winds?