What a bunch of amateurs at HR trying to defend this take off - you would get more respect if you just hold up your hands and say we ****** up, we are human! Not try and tell us the moon is made out of cream cheese.
This will never happen in certain cultures, captain is God and is never wrong. Blame it on the ATC, weather, maintenance, aircraft, passengers, but - captain is never wrong.
Personally, I don't know what I would have done in this scenario, either abort or continue the roll until GS approaches tyre limit and then rotate. Certainly I wouldn't try to hold the aircraft at ~ 10° pitch or so and wait for it to gain speed to finally lift off. It's not a soft field takeoff in a C172...