Pilot DAR
Thank you for your excellent and thoughtful post!
Being an old "newer" pilot I found during spinning training what a different beast a normally benign PA-38 can be! I see no reason to be complacent. I debrief myself after every flight - how could I have done this or that better? Occasionally things go wrong unexpectedly - just when you think your landings are automatic you get a bounce or you find yourself veering off the runway.