Lessons (not always) handed down
Yes, Fly380, you are spot-on.
I hope the Moderators will accept that this discussion is not entirely off-topic. When maintenance procedures suddenly turn into what equates to an operational incident/accident, lessons have to be learned (or, sadly, relearned) and, if necessary, new procedures worked out:
a) by those intimately concerned, the fleet, and the company;
b) by the whole industry, via the MOR system;
c) the lessons must be handed down from generation to generation. There is nothing new under the sun.
Unfortunately, every generation thinks that its predecessors were (a) idiots and (b) operating archaic kit that bears no relevance to the latest miracles of technology.
What happened was, I think, unprecedented on a jet airliner at the time, and the gentleman concerned was no fool. Normal practice had been to park the A/C after flight with the TPI (stab trim) at a nose-up-trim angle suitable for T/O well-laden, rather than zero. The A/C was naturally tail-heavy when empty. The flaps would have been at zero. The aeroplane rotated spontaneously, like even a B707 can do, but at a low speed... The flaps were, I think, selected deliberately to stop the aeroplane stalling when it was already well airborne.
The revised procedure for high-speed taxiing, as you say, was effectively to prepare the aircraft for flight. Will this concept be handed down the generations?
We have all learned a lot from reading on this thread about Airbus's mixed fortunes at Blagnac, and the way they could have avoided losing an aircraft. We understand a lot more about the role of chocks on large aeroplanes. Let's hope the next generation, somewhere in the world, doesn't make history repeat itself. Can't say I'm confident...