I see your point, but I was explaining the philosophy behind use of reverse idle for those not conversant with the use of carbon brakes. And I'm not saying I agree with it. To my mind it's a technique that was invented in the accounts department and not the flight training department. But in modern aircraft ops, reverse is less necessary that it used to be in normal situations.
I now fly the Airbus - and although we use reverse idle most of the time, we use full reverse on wet/short/high and tailwind runways. But the Airbus autobrake system is a bit different to the Boeing's and the carbon brakes wear differently.
When I sais the F/O incorrectly initiated the go around, I was referring to the technique he used. He advanced the thrust levers manually rather than pressing the TOGA buttons. He did this to initiate a faster go around according to the report. But by not pressing the TOGA buttons, the aircraft would still be in flare or rollout mode, he would have to look through the flight directors and fly the go around manually - including the navigation as the flight plan would not have sequenced the go around track. What he should have done is pressed the TOGA buttons and moved the levers manually thus overriding the motor clutch if he wanted a faster advancement. And if the aircraft had gone into the full go-around, the Commander would have felt far less inclined to stay on the runway.
If you press the 744s TOGA buttons once, you get a go around with a climb of 2000fpm. Press them a second time, you get full rated TOGA thrust.
As a matter of interest, Airbus was considering offereing the A320 family without thrust reversers as an option a few years ago. I bet that with fuel prices as they are, the idea is being dusted off again!
An afterthought: If the F/O had pressed the TOGA buttons, the autothrust would have been re-engaged and the thrust levers would have gone forward again. If they had stayed on the runway, they would have gone off the end going a lot faster.