At the end of the day people remember that first lesson POWER + ATTITUDE = PERFORMANCE
This might be one reason the crew were confused. If I recall correctly most of the way down they had TOGA thrust and about 11 degree nose up attitude. That power + attitude in normal circumstances should presumably result in climb not descent. The problem was the flight path was about 40 degrees downwards and the aircraft was stalled.
I see power + attitude = performance repeated over and over but it is only true in specific circumstances. Those circumstances apply virtually all the time for commercial flying, but AF447 escaped them.
The real equation is power + attitude + AOA + weight = performance (and you could probably add other factors too).
Power + attitude = performance is a good approximation, when flying on the front side of the power curve. Not so good where AF447 found themselves.
Also, IIRC the stall warning was confusing as the AOA was out of range much of the time and the stall warning didn't sound. It only sounded when they input forward stick, the aircraft began to recover and the AOA returned to the "valid" range.
It's easy to say a better pilot would have recovered, but think about what they saw:
- TOGA thrust and 11 degrees nose up attitude
- Instruments say they are descending
- Low airspeed value
- Stall warning sounds when they give forward stick
It sounds confusing to me. How many pilots could really recover the aircraft, on instruments from this situation with no forewarning? How many might decide the pitot/static and stall indications appeared to be unreliable, and fly power + attitude = performance e.g. TOGA thrust & 11 degrees nose up attitude?