deltahotel - "Any time above 25000' cabin alt is bad,". I do remember North Luffenham etc, and I did actually have the odd 'decompression pain' in my joints after several long (boring) un-press details at 30k in the JP3/4.
I think you have summed it (and, I think, Rat's point) up well. I have always thought the sim exercise was just a synthetic 'mad scramble' (though useful for initial drills etc), and I had often wondered about how I would have handled such with bomb damage. There one would surely accept pax and c/crew oxy problems for the sake of keeping the aircraft in as few pieces as possible?
framer - all noted and understood, but I do think we need to look at the 'bigger picture' and ask why we always just 'scream down' rather than worry about eardrums and the like? Every foot lost from cruise altitude is a bonus in oxy terms. The question is, of course, now complicated by the higher cruise levels in use and there does remain the need to vacate those as expeditiously as possible. In real terms, below about 20k, the panic is over. Having been up to 18k 'without', I know the effects of hypoxia will be there, but one can still function. There is a risk that those with 'degraded' body oxy functions might lose consciousness but I suspect that would be all they suffered for the short time taken going lower. I assume Concorde did not have 'pressurised' masks for pax, so it would have been an interesting scenario indeed from around 50k+.