Col Kurtz
Your reply has sparked my interest.
"Personally I do not think the gear up/gear down decision is a voodoo method".
Once airborne, positive rate of climb and insufficient runway to land ahead raise the gear and accelerate to blue line. In most piston twins used for charter blue line, such as it is, is between 95 and 112 knots. Rotating at 90 kts and raising the gear puts you at the blue line fairly rapidly. In conditions where this is marginal, eg taking off at 2800kg in a C404 on a 1000m dirt strip the 20 to 40 seconds of worry can seem like a lifetime but I can tell you all aircraft have coffin corners. Get to Blue line. There is nothing to be gained by excess speed at this stage, in fact you should be ready to counter with rudder, pole forward and slightly bank towards the live engine whilst performing the 5 ups. Keep going straight ahead terrain permitting. Pole forward to the maximum VYSE, 110kts will work with most, note the VSI and work back from there. If it is giving you 50 ft per min raise the nose and come back five knots, roll another degree or two towards the good engine, keep coming back on the speed until you feel you have it nailed. Loaded, in most working twins this will be around 50 to 200 fpm rate of climb. Also in most working twins there will be circumstances of weight and temperature and engine/aircraft condition where you will be going down at 50 to 200fpm. Thats okay ground effect can gain you several miles to a suitable area.
Transient power losses should not excite an overreaction: Example: Baron 55 with I think from memory 470 engines, the POH wants fuel pumps to low on take-off in conditions over 100deg C.
Or aircraft with rippled rubber bladder fuel tanks storeing water until acceleration/deck angle puts into the system.
Or maybe the engine blows a cylinder through the cowl.
Sometimes it maybe appropriate to drive the engine to destruction.