Can someone explain why the "standard procedure" has been to raise the nose?
I believe the (flawed) training analysis is along the lines that if you learn to recognize the onset of the stall early enough, then an increase in thrust (and hence airspeed) will fly you out of the stall threshold WITHOUT any reduction in altitude or requirement for a nose down attitude.
The flaw in this training philosophy is that it assumes you will always recognize and react at early stall onset, so the full stall never develops. If you never couple this training with full stall recovery techniques, eventually pilots end up not knowing what to do if a full stall develops.
This originates in flawed training analysis where the fear of losing any height at all during stall recovery on an approach has the effect of removing the basic skills required to recover from a fully developed stall.