A 5 shot .357 borders on totally unmanageable for follow-up shots, the muzzle blast borders on deafening, and the muzzle flash will blind you for at least 3 seconds after each shot in a dark room.
That is not my experience at all. I can do pretty respectable double taps with my dad's Ruger SP101 with full power 158grn Magnums. Though it does get tiring after a while, two or three cylinders full isn't a problem. Also, I've fired a snub .357 in low light without hearing protection and while the muzzle blast and flash was definately noticeable, I was still able to immediately see and hear what was going on around me.
Most revolver owners cannot reload the thing in much of anything less than one full minute, . . . when they do, . . . if they are successful, . . . the situation either should be over, . . . or they'll be dead.
I'm no Jerry Miculeck or anything, but I was practicing reloading my S&W M66 at the range on Monday and I was able to fish a Safariland Speedloader out of my coat pocket and reload in 10-15 seconds without trying particularly hard.
My XD or 1911 start at 9 rounds, go to 14, . . . reload quickly and easily even under adverse circumstances, . . . have a track record of very effective in the rounds they deliver, . . . have only a fraction of the muzzle blast and muzzle flash of a sawed off revolver.
Capacity is, I feel, over-emphasized. A self-defense situation, particularly inside a home, is likely to happen very quickly and at very close range. I don't know about you, but I can't draw and fire more than two or three shots out of any handgun in much less than two seconds, an amount of time that would easily allow most people to cover several yards. This means that if someone is willing to brave gunfire, they're likely going to be on top of me in a grappling situation and, as has been mentioned, a revolver can be shoved into someones abdomen and fired repeatedly without malfunction.
Since we're talking about self-defense, if I've got enough time and distance for anything more than a revolver to be useful, I'm going to be reaching for a more substantial weapon than a handgun anyway (I also keep a 12ga shotgun and a .223 semi-auto rifle handy for HD).
I have revolvers, . . . love shooting them, . . . enjoy hunting with them, . . . but I fully realize that they are the Model "T"s of HD and SD, . . . and fully deserve to join Marshall Dillon's rig, . . . hanging on a peg somewhere.
Yet you still depend on a 1911 which was developed concurrently, or in many cases before, with the majority of modern DA revolvers.