So do people think it's worth the risk of setting power to idle without knowing for certain if a reverser is the cause?
Some people have mentioned that the vibrations and noise would indicate a reverser problem, but in the aircraft I have flown, spoilers also cause a lot of vibration and noise and yaw/roll action. Without being able to see the back of the aircraft I think it would be hard to differentiate between an uncommanded reverser and an uncommanded assymetric spoiler deployment very quickly - unless you had some kind of experience, sim or otherwise, that let you judge otherwise.
I agree with the guy who mentions combat / aerobatic training as being extremely useful in this kind of situation. I think that a typical civilian crew that has "positive g, altitude" on their minds 24/7 may be in trouble. Unloading the aircraft (0g) would probably buy you a lot of time.
I wonder how unloading the aircraft (0g / 0 or low AoA) would affect things in a thrust reverser deployed situation. I do not trust sims to get this right but I also do not want to try it in a real aircraft, thankyouverymuch. Any test pilots with parachutes want to give this a shot?