John,
  One correction to your post - the Columbia test pilot did not bail out
because of an unrecoverable spin, he bailed because he was unable to
jettison his spin chute during testing.  The primary and backup releases
failed, so he opened the door and jumped.
  I'm sure that test parameters dictate that you leave a wide margin for
error, which means you deploy your spin chute pretty high up. Given more
time, he may very well have been able to recover from the spin he was in.
  Skip Slater