I like the way you use words noflynomore, enjoyable to read. I disagree with your angle on this though. Trying to tie it to the children of the magenta line is a real stretch. There are plenty of us who used to fly around with no automatics and who still do a three degree profile calculation constantly who would have recognised this as a rare situation where ( as 4468 said)
There is one undeniably safe course of action here. There is another course with unquantifiable risks.
and as such made a decision to have this unusual situation resolved in a slow, measured, low risk fashion with suitable input from and Engineer who could assess the situation from the ground. If the Engineer requested some thrust be applied to gauge how effective that would be then that is fine, but to suggest that taking this measured approach is somehow related to being of a certain generation of pilots is demonstrating a need to lament how things used to be. On that note, 2016 was the second safest year in aviation history based on accidents per flight. Doesn't seem like it with all the news and information flowing into your lounge via the interweb does it? Rest assured, the incidents used to happen but you just didn't know about it.
That's my take anyway.
Cheers