I have had low experience in both the SR20 and 22 but of the two found the lower powered SR20 had a more balanced feel to the aircraft rather than the 22.
Pace,
That's an interesting observation. I've only had one flight in an SR 22 and I found it a delight to fly manually. Bearing in mind that the object of my flight was to see how the automation worked, I did two takeoffs, two landings and a go-around from an ILS, with no prior upper-airwork and had absolutely no difficulties.
What exactly do you mean by "a more balanced feel"?
Why the hell would a competetent Pilot in control of the aircraft get into a spin?
007, the short answer is "easily". I'll preface my slightly longer answer, by stating that I like spinning. I've done hundreds of spins in Chipmunks and in gliders and quite a few spins in an assortment of other aircraft, mainly Citabrias and C172s.
I've done spins and recoveries on partial panel in C172s and I've taught spinning in gliders, where some of my heavier students rapidly learnt the difference between a spin and a spiral dive, if they didn't hold the stick back on the stop.
So, concerning your competent pilot, I can envisage a situation where a pilot routinely flies in IMC, relying on the autopilot and then has an autopilot failure in cloud. If he has not routinely practiced manual flying on instruments, I can see him easily losing control. Admittedly, it would be more likely a spiral dive than a spin, but the result would be the same, unless he came out of cloud or had the red handle in a Cirrus.
Concerning the spin testing, it's interesting to note that three of the four cases were only tested at forward CG. I find that somewhat surprising.