Lack of basic flying skills
"We as an industry desperately need to go back to basics, hand fly aircraft more often, teach crew to think, and not just act."
I would imagine hand flying tends to use more fuel, and therefore costs more money. I can see why management discourage it. In my experience corporations don't like people to think. They much prefer it when people don't think, but blindly follow SOPs. Thinking people are troublesome, for all kinds of reasons.
"One poster mentioned QF A380, and stated that QF didn't have the same time pressure."
I'm not a pilot, but turboprop pilots here have described graphically the need to act quickly when a windmilling propellor (or engine/prop combination generating negative thrust) is rapidly bringing the aircraft to the edge of controllability.
I can imagine that when one has engine problems at low level over a city, with a training captain breathing down one's neck, one has an incentive to be, or appear to be, decisive. I can also imagine why, for various reasons, pushing the nose downwards to maintain speed might be somewhat unpalatable. One reason which springs to mind would be when a high-rise is filling your windshield.
I'm not particularly surprised at the fumbling under the apparent circumstances. It's human nature. I'm slightly more surprised that the flightpath didn't track the river more closely.