john, you are right, 40 + angle of attack after the pitch went from +15 degrees to about - 10 degrees. Unless the captain saw how they managed to put them selves in that position he would have difficulty sorting it out initially not having ever seen it before.
The flight recorder shows their IAS dropping off drastically when they pitched up. Wouldn't their flight instruments tell them the same thing with a frozen pitot tube? Did they just follow the FD? If so maybe being an old farght isn't so bad after all.