My only experience with aircraft close to this size comes from a couple of flights with a manufacturer's pilot who insisted that I just rotate the airplane at Vr and let the plane do the rest. I preferred to fly the airplane off the runway but he insisted that rotating to a specific angle was the way to go. If the Spanair pilots had flown the plane off the runway, they would have instantly realized that something was wrong and would have kept the nose down and out of a stall condition until sufficient airspeed was attained to actually fly. Can an MD qualified pilot comment on this. Why just rotate? Why not fly it off? If it doesn't fly at Vr, then something is wrong.
