It would be nice to have a setting within the part options menu where you could control the speed/amount of parachute deployment.
For example: set the parachute to only deploy a certain amount while above a certain altitude. Then fully deploy once below that altitude.
This would help to remove some of the unrealistic G-forces that the current parachutes create.
The main problem is that unrealistic Gforce is allowed. However, when that issue is fixed I think they'll put 2 modes for parachutes that can be activated / controlled through staging. Once that is available, you can either activate manually or by a flight program that incorporates velocity with air density to trigger in the optimum conditions (
{ square the velocity × air density } would be the function you need )