A note of personal history - the UK was the first country to have formal approval rules for installation of ballistic parachutes. I led drafting of them about 1997 and a very interesting task it was too.
I've since flown a number of BRS equipped aeroplanes, including using BRS as our primary "get out of gaol card" during the first spinning of two aeroplane types. (Although somehow I've so-far failed to ever get my backside in a Cirrus).
Cirrus is unique however, in that the philosophy that I/we envisaged was that
(a) the primary consideration of the parachute was that it was not to endanger the aeroplane
(b) the aeroplane still had to meet all of the safety requirements any other aeroplane would.
The Cirrus is so far as I know unique in that the parachute is actually certified to work (as opposed to not do any damage if you don't touch it), but also that the aeroplane was allowed during certification to be more relaxed in some ways than another aeroplane is.
So, and very critically, a Cirrus IS NOT certified as able to recover from a spin in the same way that, say, a C172 would be.
And this has to change the mindset of a pilot flying a Cirrus, compared to one flying, say, a C172. You would not try and recover it from a spin, you'd pull the handle.
However, then we come to the difficult bit, there is so far as I know absolutely no difference between how a C172 should be able to handle an engine failure, and how a Cirrus should. Both should be fully controllable to land in a field.
However, taking a step sideways and backwrds - the first military aeroplanes were not equipped with parachutes. As compact parachutes were developed and made reliable, they became very controversial and through most of WW1 most military aeroplanes did not carry them as they were considered to encourage bad thinking.
I wasn't around, but I'll bet that there were similar controversies when the ejector seat came along.
And so we have it on the Cirrus for good reason. Some pilots (I'm sure not all) are taking the view that it gives them an alternative option and either permits them to avoid trying to fly a forced landing, or to take the aeroplane places where one just wouldn't be possible. It's a rational decision, albeit one that most of us older old and less bold pilots (even if we have got a reasonable amount of ejector seat time) tend to disagree with. Ultimately it is a legitimate point of view however, because the parachute system in the Cirrus does work, just as flying low level in a Jaguar was rational, for exactly the same reasons.
The first air accident investigation that I ever worked on was a Hawk, the aeroplane was written off, both pilots ejected and survived with only minor injuries (save possibly to their careers). I had the interesting pleasure of phoning BAe to tell them we'd written off one of their babies - the initial response from the man I spoke to remains with me to this day:-
"Kit is only kit, so long as nobody was killed, we can build another one".
G