Do intuitions developed about airframe integrity in an aviation context necessarily apply to spaceflight? Normally I wouldn't think automatic chute deployment would have much value without a full ejection seat, although in this case it saved a life. Did the designers of this craft actually have a meeting in which they decided that the likelihood of this exact sort of incident is so much higher than an intact-vehicle incident that an automatic chute is warranted while an ejection seat is not?

For some reason I suspect that a couple of years from now we'll be reading a tell-all about the culture of risk-taking at "The Spaceship Company". (Whether such a book is warranted or not.)