I'm not convinced there is anything wrong with the aircraft per se.

Having flown one, I am absolutely convinced there is nothing wrong with
it - assuming you have the right pilot in the seat. Actually, I rather
like the aircraft. It's roomy and comfortable, the visibility is
excellent, the panel (meaning the new glass panel) spectacular in both
functionality and redundancy, and the side-yoke is a damn good idea. I
find it slightly less demanding to fly in IMC than a V-tail Bonanza,
but the difference comes entirely from improved
ergonomics/instrumentation. The airframe itself, despite being fixed
gear, is just as slippery and pitch-sensitive as a Bonanza with the
gear up, and maybe more so. On top of that, you can't slow down by
dropping the gear.

I've often said that an Arrow is not really a complex airplane - it's
just a Cherokee with a couple of extra levers. The same principle
applies to the Cirrus - it's not really a simple airplane, it's a
Bonanza with a couple of levers missing. Further, adding the parachute
makes the decisionmaking AND the flying of the emergency procedure more
complex AND more demanding than in a Bonanza - it's part of the way to
being a light twin. Here we have an accident where the pilot didn't
keep his airspeed under control - and so of course the parachute did
him no good. Conceptually, that's no different than a twin accident
where the pilot fails to control airspeed in the single engine
configuration.

their marketing is still touting the product as providing quantum
improvements in safety, which it manifestly does not.

Actually, I suspect it does provide some improvement. I suspect that
if the same pilots with the same level of training were flying around
in traditional heavy singles and light twins, the carnage would be
worse. But the Cirrus business plan has always been to dramatically
increase the number of pilots who fly for transportation, not simply
take market share away from Beech or Mooney. I didn't think it was
viable then, and I don't think it's viable now.

Is Cirrus is selling a disproportionate number of airplanes to
inexperienced pilots?

That's certainly the impression I'm getting - the pilots either have
low total time or low time in a similar class of airplane (and by
similar class of airplane, I mean Bonanza, Viking, late model Mooney,
etc.). I'm not seeing any accidents in the Cirrus being caused by
pilots with hundreds of hours in a Bonanza or a Viking.

It's not that a low time pilot CAN'T safely fly one. With the right
instruction and the right attitude, it's very doable. However, the
typical buyer of a Cirrus (near as I can tell) is a self-made man in
late middle age. He is very likely to be a business owner (as this one
was). Such people generally didn't get to where they are today by
listening to all the people telling them what they couldn't do. Such
people are also not going to hang around the airport absorbing
knowledge. They're not going to meet the kind of instructor who can
really teach them to get utility from that airplane without becoming
statistics, and they're not going to rearrange their schedules and put
up with his quirks to fly with him. And so we're goign to keep seeing
accidents like this.

Michael