Mary
In answer to the questions you asked.
I have been flying since 2006 and have a total of 1300 odd hours, just over 1200 of them in my SR22. I flew 260 hours last year although my normal rate over the last few years is about 200.
I do have an IR and most of my flying is IFR.
I don't have "the agency" as you put it, or any other commercial link to Cirrus and, in the past have been strongly critical of them on the COPA forum.
I don't see myself as "passionate" about Cirrus per se: I am very passionate about safety and don't want inexperienced Cirrus pilots to be put off using a proven life saver by things they read on forums like this. Especially when those statements are demonstrably inaccurate.
I'm not 100% sure from your description of the "gormless pilot", but I'm pretty sure I know which deployment that was. If I'm right, this was a VFR pilot flying a Cirrus SRV (i.e not IFR equipped) who had a VMC into IMC incident.
As we both know all to well, incidents of that type are one of the biggest killers of GA pilots and I think it's infinitely preferable for this pilot to have pulled the chute and have to face being called "gormless" than the alternative.
I recall a Cirrus fatal accident at South Bend Indiana where a VFR pilot got into exactly this situation and killed himself and two children.
Engine failure is far from the only problem the chute can help with (it doesn't actually "cure" anything!). Off the top of my head, not referring to the record so not a comprehensive list, actual, real CAPS saves to date have included structural failure (broken flap hinge), VMC into IMC, icing incidents, aircraft upset, pilot incapacitation.
This last one saved the family of a pilot who died at the controls, I think of a heart attack.
Let's also put the deployment parameters into context.
The POH says that the maximum demonstrated deployment speed is 133 Knots and the altitude 2000 feet.
There have actually been successful deployments at 400 feet and at speeds ranging from 34 Knots (inverted!) to 186 knots.
So no, it's not a magic reset button but it has saved an awful lot of lives. The other side of the coin is that there have been far to many Cirrus pilots killed when the chute would almost certainly have saved them.
And not all "gormless" pilots: Manfred Stolle was, by all accounts, a damn good pilot and he still died. As I said in my earlier post, nobody knows why he didn't pull and live.