I am with you guys who go the FE route, I still fly with the voice activated, hairy hand actuated throttle set up, will miss it when we finally move to something clever.
I do not fly these modern aircraft, but am still pretty alarmed that this situation occured, some lucky people there by all accounts.
No one doubts the skill and usefulness of a Flighte Engineer but there is no job for a flight engineer on a modern two crew aircraft. I remember positioning from Melbourne to Perth in 1990 on an Australian Airlines B767. Out of courtesy I went on to the flight deck to say hello. I was amazed to find a flight engineer sitting in front of a small panel where some of the overhead panel had been relocated. He also had a secondary EICAS screen. He appeared bored out of his mind and, frankly, was superfluous to requirements.
What we have in this incident, if our understanding is correct, is poor adherence to checklists, poor SOPs and poor airmanship leading to a very serious error. Employing a flight engineer to cover for a pilot's apparent lack of training or airmanship would seem OTT.