To keep the topic relevant, should I delete the preceding six posts? Jump runs from SR-71's are a stretch!
From my Piper Cheyenne days, I recall that the plane seems more twitchy to fly higher than the high 'teens, but I don't have a lot of experience up there. I accept that the King Air pilot was pushing the bounds by approaching a messy stall at 16,000 feet, and my limited experience has me thinking that maybe the less dense air resulted in delayed recovery.