Why don't those instructors teach all 3 methods and the +&- of each technique?
It only takes a few mags to go over each technique.
I think I can answer this. Instructors prefer to teach the methods they believe to be best. What constitutes "best" isn't always clear. A few believe in teaching what works best for the shooter, how to release the slide or what grip or stance to use, etc.
at least 1 person (officer) died because the fine motor skill to press down on the little button flummoxed him and rendered him a sitting duck.
Really? Are you so sure? I have seen a lot more screw up because of a lack of familiarity and lack of skill with their own weapons. Was it really a fine motor skill issue or was the officer simply not fully competent in the use of his/her gun?
Another way in which officers can be rendered a sitting duck is the half second or so of extra time lost between the difference of a slide stop release and a slingshot release. Years ago, we used to run a bunch of drills to figure out what sorts of methods seemed to work best, were fastest, easiest to use, what sorts of rigs worked better, concealment clothing, etc. etc. etc. While I know there are always superhuman speed demons for whom the normal curves don't apply (of which few general population cops would fall into this category), the slingshot method took longer, by about a half second or so over the slide stop method. The pinch slingshot tended to be a bit faster than the overhand slingshot method but also tended to have more failures of proper grip (necessary pinch force and friction to sufficiently pull the slide rearward) than the overhand method.
I will say this. I have never seen anybody smack themselves in the face using the slide release method. I have seen them do it with the pinch and overhand and I seem to recall on bloodied nose and one blackened eye (different events). You can smash your own safety glasses into your face and blacken an eye.
After our tests, I gave up on the pinch slingshot method. It simply caused too many problems because of not being able to get the grip needed to make it work very reliably. On a clean gun, I find the slide release method works very well with my carry guns, but starts to faulter especially after the gun gets a couple or 300 rounds through it, not much, but more so than an overhand slingshot method.
The slide stop on my XD is ridiculously hard to manipulate and downright painful at times.
Well then your gun (maybe the model in general?) would not be good for the slide stop release method.
The reason has nothing to do with motor skills or chambering ability, it has to do with simple economics and mechanical forces like stress, shear and strain. Releasing the slide via the slide stop introduces several forces to the corner of a material. Two corners constantly running over each other (such as in this case) are going to round and wear. The rate at which the corners wear is dependent on the materials used. I would LOVE to think that my slide is harder than my slidestop, but I get a feeling, any extra wear on the slidestop is bad.
While I don't doubt there are guns out there that with poor metal, but I have a 1911 with over 120,000 rounds through it that had been worked with extensively over 7 years with lots of mag change, slide release (primarily with the slide release lever) and first rond dry firing and the metal problem you mentioned hasn't caused any negative consequences. Maybe you drop the slide on your gun 50,000 times a year and if so, using the slide release might have some negative impact. Of course, few people shoot their guns more than a few thousand times at all, so I see the bit of wear as being a salient issue for most guns.
If you think about it, if the slide release method was truly better, but wore out the gun after 40K or or 30K cycles, when it came to self defense, would you not be highly skilled in its use, knowing that the price of parts and replacement is nothing compared to the price and replacement of you?
