You guys weren't there! You did not know what went through the captain's mind then...he must have had flash backs to the scenes of Sully's Hudson river ditching with the possibility of losing both engines. There was a possibility that he was thinking of a quick 180 turn, leaving the gears and flaps in place looking for some concrete to land the crippled plane.
You have (inadvertently) nailed the basic reason for this totally mis-handled event.
He was probably weighing all his options as well and handling the crippled plane with all the cockpit warnings and erratic indications. All you insufferable arm chair critics and Monday morning quarter backs should have a chill pill up your sixes.
Unfortunately, you have drawn the wrong conclusions. At a minimum both crewmembers panicked and came extremely close to stuffing the airplane into a crowded neighborhood. At worst, one or both suffered from what I call the "Sully Syndrome".
I have seen an alarming increase over the last two years of the Hudson River ditching being used in training cycles. It is popping up as a shining example for CRM classes (dubious), has caused a new-found love for esoteric and useless systems debates (I walk away from these) but thankfully I have not seen it invade the simulator (hopefully it never does, either officially or unofficially).
I am not in any way trying to tarnish the performance or image of Capt. Sullenberger and crew, but face it, there is little useful information to be learned from that event except that when faced with a double flameout over a big city, look for the softest spot to land, and by the way, you don't have a lot of time to make up your mind. The Hudson River ditching has, however, created one of those nasty little unintended consequences: the Hero Captain has re-emerged! I can save us all, just let me get my hands on those controls!! Screw the checklist, I know better!!
What the Atlas Blue crew had was a routine bird strike after liftoff followed by the left engine rolling back with unknown damage. That's it. Nothing more. We all train for and practice this every six months. There is even a checklist in the QRH for this very event, plus a couple of memory items that are supposed to go with it. A TSB report and (so far) a 4-page discussion of this incident exists for one reason only: Hero Captain Syndrome.
I used to teach that the first memory item on any emergency checklist was "fly the airplane", followed closely by "take a deep breath" then "wait", then "Memory Items". "Don't panic", "don't be a hero" and "don't do anything stupid" were implied. Maybe not (sigh).