Also, would it be possible to set the scsi system up so that it could
   recover from power glitches where a  peripheral device loses power, but the
   rest of the bus does not?  Currently, the computer loses communication with
   this device until the machine is rebooted.

The reason you `lose communication' is that the high-level driver
thinks that the media has been removed.  It then insists that all open
partitions be closed before you can open the device again.  Obviously,
if this is your root disk, things are going to be unhappy.

I haven't done this yet, but my plan is to clear SDEV_MEDIA_LOADED on
UNIT ATTENTION and NOT READY only if the device claims to have
removable media.  This will solve the problem in the case of fixed
disks (which has certainly bitten me; every time a particular person
sits down in this office, one of my disks resets itself).