Originally Posted by
B737C525
Stick-neutral is stick-neutral, not pitch-input-neutral.
Stab position and/or thrust may very easily overwhelm the stick input.
You may need not only to move the stick, but make aggressive changes to trim and/or thrust too.
Usually upset recovery is from a sudden event, so trim was never set to the upset condition. Main reason to train for stick-middle is to dump alpha and avoid pilot induced oscillations (PIO). Aggressive moves got the pilot in trouble more often than not. The key is knowing when to react forcefully and when to go stick-neutral (before rolling to a good attitude).