That was one of the tensest things I've read in a while. My heart was pumping up until the end. The level of stress, confusion, and terror those pilots, not to mention the passengers, must have experienced must have been truly terrible.
If the plane stalls it goes down. Ponting it upwards to not go down will make it stalling even worse. You didn't have any speed to begin with and now the angle of attack is reducing its speed even more.
(Don't assume de-clutching works if you did not test it in a safe env)
That being said in reality most people don't have the training and experience to regain control anyway, which makes the very counter-intuitive option of crashing your car in a way that doesn't/is unlikely to kill anyone a fairly good option.
It looks like from the report that none of the cabin crew raised any concerns, so I'm wondering if people were pretty much oblivious and they went quickly.