> Rushing the door in a panic would have done nobody any good.
No one's suggesting this. You can both leave the plane in a calm manner and leave your bags behind. As far as I'm concerned, there's no good reason to take your bag unless it's actively obstructing the way out -- which, in fairness, could well be what's happened here.
Off-hand, some reasons not to: the aisles have limited capacity, and more bags in the aisles mean fewer people can be queueing ready to get off. It will take longer to figure out how to use the slide if you want to go down it with your bag, especially if the bag is heavy or large. The bag might have sharp corners which could damage the slide (if I remember rightly, people are advised to remove sharp-heeled shoes for this reason).
Seconds count in situations like this. I think people have taken the "keep calm" message to heart and, if anything, need to be taught to treat this kind of thing more seriously. The reason I mention this is that I'm reminded of the bystander effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect#Emergency_vers...
e.g.
> The students were placed in a room-either alone, with two strangers or with three strangers to complete a questionnaire while they waited for the experimenter to return. While they were completing the questionnaire smoke was pumped into the room through a wall vent to simulate an emergency. When students were working alone they noticed the smoke almost immediately (within 5 seconds). However, students that were working in groups took longer (up to 20 seconds) to notice the smoke.
These peoples lives could have been in imminent danger, but they might waste precious seconds to leaving the plane because of social pressures (e.g. someone sees one person taking their bag, so thinks it's okay to do so themselves, or subconsciously thinks the situation is not that serious).
People should keep calm, but they should also know to treat the situation as it is -- an emergency. But as I say, this is all speculation, and may not be relevant at all in this specific instance. I just hope everyone's okay.