Maybe the reason the PF persists with a nose-up command and then resets throttles to idle is that his instruments tell him he is diving and overspeeding????
There's a stall warning at 2:10:51, then the report notes that the stall warning horn stopped at 2:11:40, the clear implication being that the horn was sounding throughout the intervening period. So the instruments could not have been telling the PF he is overspeeding, as the instruments clearly thought he was stalling -- and saying so.
So it seems more likely he did not believe the instruments. Or is it possibile he misinterpreted the protections the current law was providing? If he thought he still had stall protection, would commanding pitch up be a way of trying to tell the aircraft: I don't want to lose altitude, and I'm relying on you not to let me stall?