HC - yes, I have had students slam the lever at the floor to enter auto and it does make the nose drop and generate less that 1g - as I said earlier, a co-ordinated entry is nearly always the best solution, as you advocate.
However, I cannot agree with Peter's aft cyclic assertion - flare effect is temporary, min pitch is a far more permanent solution where Nr is concerned.
In certain circumstances, flare effect can be used to gain height from a high speed entry to auto - the Gazelle would climb 2 - 300' from 120kts and you could hold the lever above min pitch during that zoom climb.
However, people were often lulled into a false sense of security by it as it was usually initiated verbally - when the same exercise was flown and initiated by hacking the throttle, the amount of climb was reduced and the lever had to be lowered further to prevent decay - and that was without the 1 -2 second reaction time that would occur in the real case.
So I come back to - lower the lever first, and always (except low hover) and do with the cyclic what you want or need to in order to recover the lost Nr.
No big secret - it's been taught that way for years
