Okay, fine.
Obviously, if you feel comfortable carry a J-Frame, carry it. I certainly will not turn down your help in a gun fight. But do not try to gloss over the deficiencies of the platform.
No thanks, why would I want something that holds more ammo but is very likely to malfunction or, depending on the situation, limp wristed? You also mentioned recoil, have you actually fired any of the pocket autos that are about the same size as a J Frame? You've got your opinion, I've got mine.
A modern semiauto is just fine. I have fired many pocket semiautos in 9mm and 380 and they're just fine. They are not as snappy as my 442 with 38 Special +P Speer Gold Dots.
Many people carry and shoot j-frames pretty well.
Stop with the revolver love BS. I do not see a rash of consistent and accurate slow or rapid J Frame fire on the local ranges and in classes. What I do see is large groups with consistent vertical stringing (recoil anticipation) and indications of poor trigger control. These folks would benefit from a Model 10 with four inch barrel. In several cases, I showed them how to shoot with one of my N Frames and they improved due to a bit of coaching and the longer sight radius.
Many people carry and shoot j-frames pretty well. IIRC, the M642 is S&W's best seller, year over year. If you do a search, you might find that many people can shoot a j-frame very well...as in, 50 to 100 yards well.
What I see on the range is three, five and seven yard shooting. Just because Bob Munden and Jerry Miculek did it does not mean the average shooter does it. Such shots require a high level of skill that is not present in the population. Again, what I see are consistent shooting problems that are persistent because the shooter does not train (with a revolver instructor) and does not practice consistently.
Dframe Snubbies are plenty accurate and excellent for their intended purpose. They are dead simple to operate without any safetys, slides, gadgets or widgets to operate. They're available in several of the best self defense calibres ever invented. Their smaller magazine capacity is of little or no disadvantage. I no longer own any revolvers with barrels greater than 4 inches and most are either 2 or 3 inch. The snubby has been around even before Colt popularised it about 1926 and there is a reason they're still going strong. They're accurate, sturdy, concealable, powerful, dependable, and shootable from almost any position even pushed up against an adversary or from inside a pocket.
Ah, yes, the imaginary pocket shooting advantage. So much for using your sights for every shot. How many people train this? People do not do hundreds of reps from the pocket to get it right. Determining what horizonal means for a revolver takes work under normal conditions. You deserve prison time if you take a shot from a pocket and hit another a bystander (NYPD is apparently exempt).
The rest of your justification is almost as silly. Stop and think about it for a bit. There are many semiautos that are as easy to use and do not have the complicated reloading sequence required of the revolver. I already covered accuracy as dictated by skill. If you actually trained, you would know that it is easy to press a semiauto on the adversary and back up a quarter inch before firing (try it with Simunitions in SouthNarc's ECQC class since those guns are exceptionally sensitive--not that you will attend ECQC). The "best caliber ever invented" argument is also worthless since 38 Special is known to be on the bottom of the power scale for defense. Velocity doesn't even come close to Speer Gold Dot 9mm out of a four inch barrel (my G19 chronographed at 124's at 1150; Speer shows 985 FPS for 38 Special on their site). You are not going to get 1450 FPS out of 357 Mag from a 1 7/8" barrel--be happy with ~1000-1200 depending upon bullet weight. This is 9mm territory.
The paper showing the statistical significance of the sixth shot are here on The High Road in one of the mega threads on the topic.
I am all for revolvers and my current favorite is the Ruger GP100.
However, I think we need to have some honesty in our conversations regarding the revolver as a defensive tool. Like it or not, the platform has been eclipsed by modern semiautomatic designs. Rather than exaggerate the positives of the revolver, we should address its deficiencies with good training designed to mitiate them as much as possible. This means mastering Ayoob's reloading technique, lots of dry firing, practicing CQB techniques and mastering shooting to 25 yards. Vic Stacy ran into a gun fight with criminal armed with a rifle with only six rounds (and passed his AR-15 on the way!) and prevailed with five hits at 65 yards. But, he did mention he left one shot in the chamber in case the felon closed in because he had no reload. This was poor tactics on his part, but he won anyway.
MODS: If you want to break this out into a new thread, please do so. A good title would be "Honesty in Revolver Advocacy as a Defensive Weapon" or similar.