Anyway think one moment. To fly a plane to must evalute the air speed. Because they were high altitude, and the 3 pitot was off, the only indicator effective at this moment was ground speed.
No, in this situation pitch attitude and power is the primary reference.
I wonder if this will be the deciding factor for Airbus to implement back-driven sidesticks?
Edit: added "power" to statement above; thought it was obvious.