glush,
... ever heard the legend that goes something like, "nothing so useless as runway behind you"?
Agreed completely.
Ok, somewhere like Bournemouth/Birmingham etc may dictate a different (sensible/logical) approach, but my standard procedure is to use every metre of runway available to me.
I don't have thousands of hours, but have done enough flying to see the difference between what the theory says we should do and what we sometimes ACTUALLY do.
I've beat up runways lower than I should have and other such things, my point being I'm not one of these holier than thou types who doesn't know the difference between legality and safety (not always the same). But I know what it's like to lose power after unstick and needing that extra 50 metres or so.
I wasn't in the OP's shoes and I think it's impossible to judge these situations unless you were there. It doesn't sound unsafe to me - in fact I can imagine everybody was trying to find an opportunity, and I'm sure the Pitts pilot didn't intentionally try to upset you. I'm speculating because I have done 'this' to other pilots before to utilise a spacing opportunity, but only if I was sure it wouldn't inconvenience anyone and I really was ready to roll immediately.
Just a shame you guys were taking off as opposed to landing - then you could have spoken to him and found out what was going on!
