Yes, I too think that the report on this accident will be an interesting read when it comes out.
Pitch after liftoff increases rather quickly. During gear retraction, I would expect to see about 10°; with a light DH8-400, a pitch of 15 to nearly 20° is not uncommon then during initial climb. This means that the runway gets invisible below the nose structure rather soon. Were one to lower the nose again and pull the power levers back with the possible intention to land, there might well follow some surprise about how little runway is still left out of the 2000m.
I do not know but would be interested to learn the following: How will the PSEU (Proximity Switch Electronics Unit, governing and sequencing the gear retraction and extension among many other things) react to a "GEAR DOWN" selection while it still is busy retracting said landing gear?
Either it will simply reverse the process and reextend the gear starting from where it happened to be interrupted in the retraction, or it will complete the retraction and follow with an extension from the fully retracted position - or, the nastiest possibility, it will lock up and produce a "LG INOP" caution light, seeing that the gear is in a not clearly defined position while it still is in movement (a similar PSEU fault has once caused me the need for an alternate gear extension). Is anybody able to shed some light on this?