Energy budget: height for speed
What options did the crew of BA038 have with respect to trading speed/kinetic energy for height/potential energy?
They had a finite reservoir of total energy, unless they could get power back. Worse, in fact, this energy reservoir was being depleted rapidly by drag: bleeding away into the turbulent air behind the flaps.
Going faster would increase drag further, taking away a larger fraction of their total energy per second. Going slower would reduce the loss rate, but too slow and what remains is forfeit in a stall.
The results of the manufacturer's detailed modeling of the precise circumstances: go for a bit less lift and quite a lot less drag, and squeeze the remaining energy out for as long as possible. The crew's intuition seems to have lead them to the same (right?) answer. A remaining question - does the computer modeling take into account the details of ground effect, surface topology and gusty wind in the final seconds?