Twos in
I agree with you to some extent. Fact is that regardless of the rules, this Captain made the decision to depart and then compounded the poor decision by applying poor technique. Where was the FO in the decision making process? There was a technique which could have been applied which would have prevented this accident, regardless of the departure itself being legal or not.
Poor Captaincy and airmanship decisions are not uncommon and good intelligible rules can prevent poor decisions and save lives. This is very prevalent in your fine country where lax night flying rules result in frequent EMS accidents.