The way I see it is that in a real life, intensely stressful defensive scenario you probably won't be too concerned about the recoil, flash and noise of a .357mag. Many people who've been involved in gun fights have stated that in the heat of the moment they can't even remember feeling any recoil or hearing the sound of their own gun firing.

I understand that you can't fool physics and that follow up shots with .357mag may still be more difficult depending on the gun but severe stress is a great motivator to do super human things and with .357mag you are equipped with a round that has the best track record as a man-stopper out of all the common handgun calibers. I don't have the link on me now but I know there were studies conducted back in the day when LEO's were still carrying full sized revolvers as duty weapons that showed .357mag outperformed everything else, even the .45acp.

And for those who think that a .357mag out of a snubnose loses a great deal of power and velocity and becomes the mere equivalent of a .38spl+P, that is pure hogwash. I have seen a handful of ballistics and velocity tests that prove otherwise. In fact, you would have to move all the way up to a full size 9mm pistol shooting a +P load to equal the velocity of a .357mag out of a snubnose. That's not just a minor difference, that is a big difference.

While I agree that anyone who actually enjoys shooting full power .357mags out of any lightweight, aluminum snubby must be a sado-masochist at heart, I don't think that it's asking too much to occasionally shoot .357mag out of a full steel frame snubby like an SP-101 or S&W 640 if you're an otherwise healthy adult. After all, what's the point of having the option if you're afraid to use it?