Bookworm, that's exactly my point: why did it take so long to visually recognise the situation was bad?
I believe in the air, and especially in some situations, our brain is somehow blinded by the confusion, emotion and whatever, like having smoke in front of our eyes.
Now, with smoke in front of our eyes, it's like being sitting at some distance from the instruments.
Look at a glass cockpit picture on a magazine or on the net and tell me if the airplane is going fast or slow: impossible to tell!
while you can still immediately tell the position of the analogue dials. (BTW 18 wheeler I love your cockpit!!!!).
To me , the worste pilot in the world, it seems I can recognise immediately if my descent rate is too big on a classic analogue display, than on that narrow VSI; and if I'm distracted, when I look back at the speed, I immediately know that I have vref with the dial at (let's say) 3 o'clock, while on a tape I must first read the number to translate it in a fast /slow value.
I have nothing against trend vectors, I think they help a lot, but we could have them on an analogue display on a CRT.
And they help if accelerating/decelerating: if maintaining a stable speed, you have no trend, but you might be well below the intended value.
Once again, with the needle at 6 0'clock, I know immediately I have minimum clean, in a fraction of a second, without reading the number.
Once you have figured out the situation, no doubt you know what to do.
The problem is how long it takes to understand you are in deep sh#it.
And on a Boeing you can look at the ovhd panel and feel with your hand if the thrust is at idle.
Not so with the Airbus autothrust (tell me if I'm wrong)....