Is it reasonable / possible that the confusion was so great that the pilot did not consider and alternative along these lines, and would you have gone about the "problem" in some other way? At what height and / or in what circumstances would you not consider the autopilot an option?
Fuji my take on reading between the lines on this incident is that he had lost control, did not consider or feel he had time to correct the situation and to be fair to him did what many others failed to do and pulled the chute in time. I would have considered the height he was at was critical for pulling the chute, if he messed up the autopilot and lost more altitude at that point he would no longer have the chute as a reliable option.
If he was good enough to quickly and deftly use the autopilot to regain control he likely would never have got in that situation in the first place.
The latest perspective Cirrus aircraft have one blue button on the autopilot, press it and the autopilot will immediately regain straight and level.
To achieve this with the STEC55 you would sync the heading bug, hit HDG and ALT and regain straight and level flight - under high stress I bet a few of us could mess up that simple flow.
Most chute pulls are going to attract a fair amount of criticism whatever the circumstances, often it may well be justified, often I think there for the grace of god go I.