Does the Q400 simply level off and start bleeding airspeed without any indications at all?
There are three (or two without IESI) speed tapes winding down (it's up actually, but the numbers go down). In my book that's as good indication as it gets.
Fancy building in such a death-trap as an autopilot without autothrottle and an FMS that needs lots of head-down two-pilot trouble-shooting and reprogramming?
There are many aeroplanes with A/P but without autothrottles out there (SAAB, CRJ, Challenger, ATR....) and as long as someone is paying attention to flying the aeroplane, it's not an issue. Which answers your second point: no FMS requires two properly trained pilots to fiddle with it simultaneously.
what I believe was reported by the NTSB: severe pitch and roll as a result of flap deploy.
Wrong! That's what the mediapersons wrote. What the NTSB said is that attitude excursions started after flaps being selected, not because of flaps extension.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc strikes again.
Information has been received indicating it is possible to obtain a significant nose pitch up, in some cases as much as 30 degrees, if the glide slope is allowed to capture before established on centerline.
Lemmesee... ATR didn't allow GS capture before LOC capture. Neither did A320. Why do I have the feeling that Q400 doesn't either? Perhaps because my FCOM says so? There might be some false loc capture issues, but they are not applicable here as the aeroplane was established on proper localizer. Sorry pal, but this talk about 30° pitchup as a result of bad glideslope is distilled nonsense. I hope that you made it up and that no self-respecting safety committee would publish such a statement.
Maybe an adventure surcharge could be added to a Q400 ticket.
Yeah! And worldwide tripling of Q400 pilots' salaries, effective yesterday.