I too value cargun's post
Cargun as a non pilot has introduced an important perspective we would all do well to take into account and doesn't deserve the dismissive put down his comments have received from some.
Yes, the failure of a relatively unimportant piece of equipment should not have led to the accident under discussion, but it did. Yes, the performance of the crew in monitoring the approach appears to have been woeful and well below the standards we as professionals would expect. But guess what, as we all know sh!t happens on a regular basis and under different circumstances I expect this should have been a non event. Just another unremarkable 'save' involving the man/machine interface gone awry yet resulting in a normal landing, leaving no one any the wiser but also leaving the potential for disaster in place for another crew on another day under a different set of circumstances.
Bottom line, what the man on the street will likely take away from all this is that in a well designed system the failure/malfunction of a relatively minor piece of equipment (RA#1), should not lead to inappropriate operation (idle at 2000') of a relatively major piece of equipment (A/T). It would appear that the MEL does in fact address this very scenario by prohibiting the use of A/T with a malfunctioning RA#1, but obviously the MEL was an insufficient safeguard and something else will have to be considered involving both engineering and flight crew procedures.