Chimbu...
I take your experiences and your method of teaching on board and believe it would work well for guys that already have some degree of experience before they jump into a twin. But unfortunately as you said yourself that those teaching new students barely have enough experience to pass on the correct technique let alone the students themselves. The new guys getting endorsed on a baron or seminole might have all of about 150hrs total. 150hrs may be sufficient experience to meet a standard in a controlled environment but when something goes wrong...? Unfortunately these days if a student doesn't meet the standard the instructor or the school gets the blame.
When I did my first twin endorsement my instructor had over 8000 hours. I believe what he was getting at with the "close both throttles" is that at the stage where I was at, I honestly didn't have the experience to be able to handle an engine failure at 50ft whilst waiting for a positive ROC. Unfortunately most students will have their head inside the cockpit trying to make sure they pull the correct levers and trying to locate the flap switch. All the while the aircrafts speed is rapidly decaying as it gets closer and closer to the ground and blue line. This all takes a lot longer for someone with minimal total time and time on type. The point I make is that in a real life engine failure on a hot day at MTOW I doubt that many instructors could honestly say that their students would definitely pull it off. It is for this reason that it is better for the student to simply close both throttles and land instead of letting the aircrafts speed reduce below VMC. Look what happened to the instructor/student who tried to go around when the prop was feathered on short final when the student pulled out onto the runway (somewhere on the east coast a few years ago)?
I agree that sooner or later a perfectly serviceable aircraft will EVENTUALLY reach a positive ROC but there are so many other factors involved here. Was the aircraft climbing/descending/approach configurations/how low was it to the ground and was it developing slightly less power on the live engine? What caused the engine failure and will the prolonged higher power setting cause the second engine to fail? Remember the cracked crank shaft of both engines in the Chieftain some years ago? There are small hills to the west of Rottnest (difficult for a successful forced landing) so pinning blue line speed for however long it takes to achieve a positive ROC might just send you into the side of a hill... Maybe the pilot made the correct decision by aborting and putting her down on what he thought was a good spot.
This all brings me to another interesting point and hopefully Chimbu can comment on this too (hopefully he doesn't take my comments personally). What does everyone use for a decision point in a LIGHT PISTON TWIN? I have realised that many new pilots coming through were taught blue line speed, or gear up or a height for a decision point. These all work well if they are used correctly and smartly. For example, hopefully you wouldn’t use blue line speed on a hot and heavy day... 1. An engine failure has to be recognized and reacted to (2-3 secs) 2. It has to be dealt with (7 secs) and 3. It has to be feathered (5-10 secs). All this takes time, imagine if the blue line speed is 90kts, the pilot suffers an engine failure at maybe 95kts in a nose high attitude on a hot and heavy day. That speed is going to wash off extremely fast to below blue line speed while the pilot deals with the engine failure (we’re not talking about some test pilot situation we’re talking about an everyday pilot). NOW the aircraft has to accelerate on one engine TO blue line speed… See my point? I vary my brief to each individual take off and hope that all other pilots do also. Personally I have found that blue line plus 10kts works well in most situations. Thoughts anyone?