Does anyone else have any thoughts on use of flap in this scenario though???
Considering that some aircraft have a marked trim change when flaps are lowered I would have a lot of reservations about touching them. As you rightly say, a trim only pitch control is very limited and flap deployment could easily put you outside your effective control range.
Again the answer is going to be variable because of the aircraft being flown and the exact conditions of the failure. Cessna's have inifinitely variable flap and so you could possibly experiment very carefully. Aircraft with fixed flap selections are going to be much trickier.