Baron rouge,
I think you are being a little unfair, the crew were placed in unfamiliar territory with only about a 5 sec window to do anything that would have allowed the aircraft to reach the runway and no help from previous experience other than the experience of knowing what happens to an aircraft with idle thrust and full flap. In my view the only thing they could have done was immediately bring the flaps up to G/A flap to reduce drag, otherwise there but by the grace of God go I.
As I wrote before the elimination of the stab trim wheel in Boeing aircraft (and the total lack of flight control feed back and throttle movement in Airbus aircraft) was a retrograde step as it makes monitoring an aircraft totally dependent on visual clues.