Having looked at the photos avalable of the area were this inccident happend it is clear that the options for a forced landing were to say the least limited.
You may very well be right but all that those pictures actually prove is that there was a forest
directly below 
My GF has a PhD in philosophy and unfortunately some of it has rubbed off
On the wider issue of Cirrus chute pulls, yes the chute saves lives but the seemingly high % of pilots who pull the chute in circumstances that suggest poor or nonexistent preflight planning, poor in-flight judgement, etc, will merely lead to rising insurance premiums for those who want to buy a nice shiny new piston plane, for which the choice is, currently, ahem, Cirrus or Cirrus and very little else.
If we all spent our lives crossing the Pyrenees (as I have done today) and little else then I am sure our attitudes to the chute would be different, but on the whole flight from Barcelona I would say I had easy and very obvious forced landing options 99% of the time except over the mountains, and about 90% of the time over the mountains which were crossed in the middle.
For that kind of flying, or something more bening (and I reckon 99% of UK GA flying is more benign) I would not attach much value to a chute.