Is it because of the long spool up time on those big 777 fans?

Not my experience at all with the 777 and auto throttles. I almost always turned them off on a visual. I did however turn off the arm switches which will provide you wake up in certain circumstances.

I don't believe it is a poor design because the entire idea of FLCH is to pitch for speed. Had the autopilot been engaged, they never would have stalled. He put the airplane into a pitch for airspeed mode and didn't hold the required pitch. They also failed miserably at basic airmanship and CRM/TEM.

Really? I fly a lot of VNAV approaches, especially on visuals (a visual backed up by the RNAV approach).

Really dude, that's why my company put a couple quick review pages in our QRH (Quick Reference Handbook), because some of us don't shoot them that often.

Remember we have our quick reference cards in the FAT for everything non-ILS to make all the non-ILS stuff a non-event. Other airlines may not have the same handy items. Additionally, with the VNAV to the feather protocol that we have, we run that stuff even on ILS's a lot more than other carriers may.

It's strange at the least with the hybrid design of the 777. It poses as a super modern airliner, but yet in more than a few modes than other super modern airliners will just let you go there. "Wake-up" is a stall protection that they are trained is there. 777 pilots in most arenas are trained to never turn the A/T off. The A/T column on the FMA was green and the saturated pilots assumed it was active I'm sure.

It was a combination of poor airmanship, poor systems management/awareness, poor energy management, and the strange no wake-up in FLCH sure didn't help matters.

All of the above, automation should help to prevent all of the above not enhance the failures.

Should have been, I did NOT turn off the arms switches.....

It is not just the 777. The 787 and 747-8 have the exact same logic for A/T wakeup.

The reason is the auto throttle can't wakeup to provide speed protection in FL CH SPD, VNAV SPD, TO/GA because the pitch is controlling the speed.

You can't have the speed controlled by both pitch and auto throttle.

They had V/S selected, set missed approach altitude, and at this point were very high. PF selected FL CH to get down, but the A/C started to climb to the MA altitude.

PF pulled thrust levers to idle, and A/T mode went to hold.

Initially in the descent he was more or less following the F/D.

Once the PF got low and started to shallow out he was no longer respecting the F/D.

As the FCOM states, AFDS speed protection is provided through the elevators in FL CH SPD, VNAV SPD, and TO/GA. But you have to follow the F/D.

The PM had the F/D off.

If the PF wanted to ignore the F/D guidance, he should have turned off the F/D.

If there is no F/D active, than the A/T wake feature is now available.

The design is good, and in fact really the only plausible way.

How any training department can claim that the A/T will wake up in all situations is irresponsible at best.