I am not suggesting a specific reason for the lack of action (as there is clearly no evidence yet to do so) but I am suggesting that to be overwhelmed, such that the aircraft is lost, points to being caught way off guard. Which in turn points to an environment on the flight deck that was, shall we say "less than SOP".
Such a situation may also provide clues to why the passenger cabin seems to have been unprepared for whatever occurred.
Grizzled: I can't entertain the theory that two AF pilots could be asleep at the wheel at the same time. This seems a bit much. But I do agree that they were startled by something, possibly all the alarms going off and the various failures that we know of. I think this started a chain reaction of mistakes that led to the ultimate crash; but we are not sure that they were not following SOP's....something did happen that brought the plan down quickly, as you brought evidence of, and that something for now is a mystery.....
