I have to say I never got comfortable with stall and spin and related departures until I'd done a few hours in a decent aerobatic aircraft.
And my first spin was in a traumahawk during PPL, albeit one with the LE wedges. Really seemed to flick in and rather put me off. After that, driving around in PA28 etc I always felt like I was balancing in a narrow region of control that could easily get away from me.
I think that's the problem, you're taught to fly by numbers, you don't get enough feel, and you certainly don't spend enough time in the marginal area to know what that feels like, just a few nervous, stressed stalls and hurried recovery.
And that's why everyone uses stall speed of course, because you are flying in a limited number of regimes and there is a reasonably accurate stall speed for them. But if you start to do anything dynamic rather than steady state, a particular speed isn't sufficient approximation any more. I honestly think all GA aircraft should have AoA indicators - one for each wing if you want to enthusiastically waggle them while pulling G
I would encourage everyone to get a few hours aerobatics experience in a decent aircraft specifically to get to understand this, then you do start to automatically unload when things start to feel odd and only then have to think about what's going on.
Enlightening to be floating over the top of a loop at well below "stall speed", or feeling buffet when pulling too hard in the last quarter, to be able to push and pull in and out of buffet when slow in an extended vertical.
This is how I started to get a real feel for how the aircraft flys.
Caveat that of course one can get complacent about how the usual aircraft / loading feels and get badly bitten in a different type / loading.