I quite liked the Tomahawk. I flew two about 50 hours from a 1600' turf runway. Never had a problem with them. Certainly an aircraft with some not so common flight characteristics, but it did what it was designed to do - teach you precision in flying.
I had no problem with stalls and spins in them, though I always took the approach "get in and get out" - no goofing around during these maneuvers. They were a delight to dogfight with, quite agile, and would really accelerate when you pointed them down.
They are poorly suited for rough or soft runways, and the T tail was not nice to clear of snow. Hard to load heavy articles into the cabin. The low wings require more taxiway width if snowbanks become a factor in the winter. For those reasons, I would not own one, but if all my flying was summer weather, and I had lots of firm runway, I'd be happy to have one....
Who knows what preceded the crash, but I would be surprised to find that a deficiency in the Tomahawk's design was a factor.