You have the imagination of a dead ferret, if you can't figure out what advantages forward speed and control might offer.
Here's what I can imagine with my feeble dead-ferret mind: If a pilot has an emergency dire enough to make him pull that chute, the likelihood he will be able to calmly steer some contraption in a sensible way is low.
Here's where I don't need any imagination, because these are the facts:
- the chute as it is works perfectly in all conceivable aspects of its operation.
- the reasons for chute pulls go far beyond engine failure.
- pilots are the overwhelmingly major cause of accidents. Thus, keeping pilots in control in case of an accident may be a bad idea. The success of the chute (and ejection seats in the military, I might add) certainly points in that direction. That's what my dead-ferret self was trying to convey: We aren't the super-heroes we like to think we are.