I appreciate the dialog on this critical and controversial subject.
The point I am trying to make is that in all emergencies, including the ones you note below, allowing the airspeed to decay into the high sink part of the IV envelope will result in a fatal crash unless you have enough altitude to get the nose down and the speed back up. Whatever the stall speed you end up with you will have such a high sink rate near that speed that ground contact, even if still wings level, is likely fatal to those in the airplane.
If you review the IV fatal accidents you will find that almost all occurred with either complete loss of control or high sink rates while in control. If you have 100 knots or so you can arrest the descent rate before ground contact, improving survivability.
The high sink in the IV is very different than production GA aircraft due to the high wing loading. GA aircraft really don't have a significant high sink area in their envelope so us GA types spend a lot of time worrying about stall characteristics. This sink characteristic is common in airliners, etc. and they don't spend any time discussing stall characteristics since it is not an allowable operating part of the envelope and much training drills it into the pilots to not go there. Recall the airbus that went into the ocean with full power and full aft stick to appreciate this high sink region.
I think us IV drivers will be safer if we become convinced that below 100 knots or so is not allowed and that the thinking that there is some safety margin to be gained by operating the airplane below that speed in emergencies is taken off the table.
Jack Morgan