"My business and professional life is in my computer bag"
TacomaSailor, your bag would be as useless as tits on a bull if you died of smoke inhalation because selfish gits like yourself impeded an evacuation just to collect your gear from overhead lockers.
If I was unlucky enough to be sitting on the window side of you during an emergency evacuation and you were farting about with the lockers, I would be clambering over the seats in front of me.
Your claim that people collecting their items from overhead would not slow down an evacuation is laughable. I'm not sure you're even being serious? Why the hell do you think it can take up to 15 minutes to leave an aircraft once the doors open. You have elderly, young, short, unfit, handicapped, forgetful, confused, disorganized etc etc people trying to sort themselves out. In other words it can be complete chaos.
If I'm ever unlucky enough to be involved in an evacuation, I want to be off the aircraft in seconds, not minutes.
Do yourself a favour and google how many people have died of smoke inhalation because they couldn't get off in time. There are several well known cases, including ones involving intact aircraft i.e. they didn't crash.....