I donīt agree the "problem fixed"-thing, thats what most of the discussions here is all about!
Well, I think that what MPH means is that, from the point of view of the pilots, they (and the engineers) thought the problem had been "fixed", at least well enough to sign the airplane fit to fly that flight.
Obviously they were both wrong. But they both were unaware that the TOWS was also inoperative on that flight, as nobody thought of giving the airplane a more complete test and the SOP didn't mandate a TOWS test for the conditions of that particular flight, nor did the maintenance manual suggested a TOWS test after a RAT probe heater problem.
So, from the point of view of the pilots, the plane was "fixed" (which it wasn't), they followed the checklist (which they didn't) and the aircraft refused to fly properly after VR for reasons that weren't obvious to them.
All this, of course, speculating that indeed what happened is that the crew forgot to deploy flaps/slats and the TOWS alarm had become inoperative due to an electronic malfunction since the last time it was tested in the previous flight.