Interesting enough the question is being asked of with the surge should he have shut down, if you have read other reports you may remember a baron that crashed into Darwin that had a partial engine failure, he thought it was providing power so kept it running. It wouldn't perform on one and crashed, he was heavily critised for poor training and not understanding the amount of drag caused by a windmilling prop!
I'm not sure about his training but my MECIR training actually included situations like single engine g/a, climb to LSALT, discussion of what now in this situation, plus 2-3 other what ifs with a what then question mark, all whilst still hand flying on one, all discussions included maintaining height until as long as safely required.
Engineering analysis alone, crap report aside I think the big issues were in the report, and I guess known at the time were,
1. Lack of assertiveness with ATC
2. Lack of knowledge of the a/c (horn blaring in background and how to silence it) - perhaps back to his crap endorsement
3. Lack of discipline in handling of the engine failure, all things aside with this you can't deny it was mishandled.
Lets face it in all stages of GA pilots set their own standards, in GA it's not like the airlines were you are thrown in the sim and demanded to perform. Even in the airlines so guys are in the books brushing up weeks before a cyclic, others do a swat study the day before to cover the basics to get through it.
Sadly those guys that chase the 'easy' ATO for an endorsement or renewal are doing themself an injustice, it should always be a learning experience not a tick and flick exercise.