My ground school instructor at Colgan was supposed to be the captain on that flight. He was involved in the simulation of the accident scenario during the investigation. The power was never advanced beyond about 73% torque if I recall, the captain held the yoke all the way back and the FO retracted the flaps. The simulations concluded that the retraction of flaps made the event unrecoverable... Even with the power in the low 70% range and the yoke all the way back, the aircraft would recover in the available altitude. Unfortunately the FO's uncommanded configuration change was the final link in the accident chain.

The Q400 bleeds energy like crazy below 200 knots... Above, not so much, fatigue combined with weak skills could cause it to creep up on you.