Turning the focus back to airframe fitted chutes for a moment, the Cirrus aircraft that have them are designed to absorb the shock, as someone has already mentioned. This includes seats, airframe, landing gear and so on.... a year or so ago a guy deployed his chute over water when his engine failed, he broke his back on impact as the landing gear wasn't able to do what it was designed to do. The guy had the chance to glide to a nearby beach and carry out a forced landing yet thought hmm I'll deploy my chute without even considering landing the aircraft, in my opinion they give a false sense of security and I would hazard a guess that many people that own aircraft that harbour such devices wouldn't know the correct time to use them.
Fitting one to an aeroplane that wasn't designed to withstand a vertical landing would probably kill the occupant, someone mentioned that Cirrus say the landing is like falling from 10 feet, this is achieved with the combination of features to cushion the fall... features not available to normal aeroplanes so its undoubtedly safer to carry out a proper forced landing.