Hours don't mean a lot, but judgment and experience surely does.
and
800 hours is still 800 hours...no matter who's doing the flying.
which appears contradictory. Hours mean a lot. With hours come experience. Given enough hours of even the most benign flying and you will have the pleasure of encountering a few interesting situations. All weather short sector hours may well enable you to gain more experience more quickly I do not doubt.
Yes, 800 hours is a very low time pilot
which is also contradictory, since it depends as you said what the time was spent doing.
Moreover, realistically for most GA pilots 800 hours IS a high time pilot.
An 800 hour pilot with 15 hours of cirrus time is a 15 hour cirrus pilot...not an 800 hour pilot.
Now I think you must be confusing yourself. Either experience, as you suggest, counts, or it does not. Experience gained to deal with weather doesnt vanish because your ride changes.
The Cirrus is a reasonable quick, easy to fly, non complex aircraft. It is a simple aircraft, but performs well compared with most light singles. The only aspect that causes low time pilots problems is that it is significantly quicker and more slippery than most GA singles. Someone transferring from a Mooney with glass with 800 hours is as good as makes no difference an 800 hours Cirrus pilot after 20 hours in the aircraft.
I do wish you wouldnt keep referring to the chute as the "panic button". It makes me think you have never seen a Cirrus.
The chute is there as a means of giving the pilot a second chance when things go wrong. Many pilots kill themselves making forced landings - the outcome is by no means assured. Many pilots in aircraft without chutes get themselves into the same situation as Cirrus pilots. The evidence suggests that in the early days Cirrus pilots suffered a high accident rate than expected, but that is almost certainly no longer the case. Personally I think the reason was far more to do with the aircraft being relatively easy to fly and attractive to a new breed of more wealthy pilots but some of these pilots had not accumulated the experience to take on a high performance light single. This has rightly been addressed.
SNS3Guppy - you appear to be obsessed with the Cirrus and its chute. I dont understand why. Do you have something against chutes other than having convinced yourself a pilot with a chute lets go of the normal rules about blundering into weather?