I've been thinking about it and personally I don't think I have ever entered an auto without needing to pull back on cyclic . Also I was taught that as one tends to fly quite a lot with your hand away from collective it makes sense to start a flare immediately ( also my early flying was crop spraying where you certainly do not want to drop collective first !!!)...just because your hand is already there and it will buy you precious seconds of extra time in which to drop collective . As for which should happen first in a perfect world .... I'm not sure it really matters . If you keep the rrpm in , or just above the green it works for me .