I've never flown an airliner, so maybe there was something in the crew's insistance on maintaining a nose-up attitude that makes sense to those who have done, but from my flying experience that's tantamount to suicide when you're in a stall environment, with stall warnings sounding.
Probably because that's what we were all told to do: Minimise altitude loss, not stuff the bloody nose down until you get unstalled. Only recently has the emphasis been changed to the classic stall recovery: stuff the bloody nose down until you get unstalled then sort out the altitude loss!
Aircraft gives up on you, and you've never had to be violent with the aircraft before, especially at high altitude. You'd be a bit reluctant to do anything drastic, especially if you don't normally even "fly" the thing.
The crew will be blamed, but they were set up by the system.