Actually its the layout of the engines on the DC-10 which makes this trick easier to carry off. The center engine has a different attitude to the left and right engines, and can be used to control the pitch of the aircraft.
Having said that, wing mounted engines cause a huge positive pitch moment when their thrust is increased, because they are below the center of drag of the aircraft. Light aircraft have less pitch trim than normal pitch control, while it is the reverse on commercial jets. This is to offset the effect of the engines pushing the nose up.
One factor in a recent crash in Russia may have been the aircraft automatically trimming down when the engines came on, then not being able to trim up fast enough when the engines reduced thrust.
edit: and the problem with only having engines below the wing is that you can only pitch up with the engines on high thrust. What you want is a high angle of attack (pitched up) with the engines at idle. If you have control of the pitch trip on a DC10, you can use the center engine to push the nose down, then cut the power to flare.
