Jim, (By the way, the secondary instability work is Dahlburg, KLIMCHUK, and Antiochos!!!) Ooops!
So maybe it is possible that the place most favoured by the corona to relieve its stresses is at the base. Or maybe there is another possibility, that reconnections in the corona send jets of energetic particles downwards, where they boil the chromospheric material and send that material upwards. In this case, we might first observe what is happening at the chromosphere, because of the much greater densities there -- has this been ruled out? Cheers Mitch