Please phil77; you have absolutely NO idea of how many seconds any of the pilots were "staring at" the ASI. You weren't there. Hindsight is bull****. It must have made sense for the pilot(s) to act the way they did - otherwise they would have done something else. Question is; why? Fatigue, inadequate training, routine/expectations, distractions? Combinations?
I do, however, suspect the crew were not proficient (by that I mean that their actions/inactions possibly weren't second-nature) with regards to handling the aircraft in/near a stall. I'm not thinking about pushing or pulling the yoke - the Q400 has enough power to pull itself right outta there without any additional help, and it could be that the a/c pitched up because of the added downwash on the T-tail...
BUT: if you look at the animation, the PF is using aileron input whilst the a/c is approaching a stall. What happened to basic flying skills??? NEVER use ailerons when you are close to stalling the a/c!!! The aircraft flips quite violently opposite to aileron input from what I can see from the animation.