From the report submitted by the pilot he had 1950 hours and an instrument rating, with good currency. He was also a flight instructor.
Which means it is possible he may have never hand flown inside a cloud in his whole career.
There is a big difference between the make believe world of IFR flight instruction and actually hand flying in IMC.
Actually some of them might be better off putting on a hood as soon as they get in cloud and then maybe there would not be the stress of knowing they were IMC for real?