MJ and BEagle: "there is no such thing as a standard spin recovery" - not quite true.
'Tis my understanding that, to be approved for deliberate spinning, an aircraft needs to recover within a specified number of turns "when the standard spin recovery" is used. The manufacturer may choose to publish a different spin recovery in the POH (which may give a faster recovery) but the aircraft is still required to recover with the standard spin recovery. Unfortunately I haven't got the references to hand, hopefully someone can post a quote - if not I'll dig them out ASAP.
(Edited 9/Nov: Quote from Darrol Stinton's Flying Qualities and Flight Testing of the Aeroplane, page 536: "When clearing an aeroplane for spinning, if the manufacturer's recommended recovery drill differs from the Standard Recovery Drill, then both are explored for the purpose of type certification. The reason is that pupils are taught the standard recovery drill in training. Under stress pilots often revert to earlier learned patterns of behaviour and, if caught out with an unexpected spin, many automatically use the Standard Recovery Drill without further thought".
The "Standard Recovery Drill" is defined on page 506, along with the recovery requirements.)
TCs give some response to roll therefore they react faster and supposedly make life easier when not spinning - nasty American invention
HFD