Sure. I'll do so by rebutting your assumptions and argument in a little finer detail.
The Harry Reid Seante was sitting on a pork list they wanted to pass but had no other bill to which they could hang the strips of rotting bacon
You obviously weren't aware of H.R.6049 and its contents, because if you were, you would have known that the Harry Reid Senate not only had a bill under which to pass all the pork, the Harry Reid Senate, with the unanimous cooperation of all voting Republicans, had in fact already passed all that pork on September 23rd. I don't think there's anything wrong with you being unaware of this - the media never mentions it, and the only reason I know it is that I shun the media in favor of base source material as a matter of daily routine.
Pelosi had HR 6049 sitting in the House as of September 29th. She could have brought it up and passed it, but she objected to some tax relaxation measure (I don't recall exactly what) not having a corresponding revenue increasing tax. Her objection may have been related to revising the threshold for imposing AMT (not a controversial proposition in its own right, but historically held hostage for tax increases elsewhere) or may have been related to a tax relief for energy business. Whatever the difference, it was something that could have been worked out between the chambers in one or two back and forth cycles, but given the time available in the 110th Congress, the bill was going to (unfortunately, in the eyes of Republican and Democrat leadership) die via inaction.
Had the House passed the MOnday [bailout only] bill, the Senate could have added layers of pork, but then the redesigned bill would have been sent to the House for conferencing and the process would have taken perhaps weeks.
The Senate had already sent the pork package to the House. If the Senate had obtained the bailout-only language on Monday, it would have passed it without amendment! The Senate (and President Bush) was pissed that House Republicans didn't pass the bailout-only bill. If it had passed the House on Monday, it would have been law by Wednesday.
All that pork was already in the House as HR 6049, and adding it to House-passed bailout-only would have put the bailout language at risk at worst, and would have delayed it at best.
But even if the Senate had added all that pork as a big fat amendment (stranger things have happened), there is no need for a House/Senate conference or weeks of delay. The House can take up the House bill with the Senate amendment, and vote on it. In fact, this "pass it back and forth without a conference" is the norm. If Reid had planned to attach HR 6049 to what had been "bailout only," he would have cleared it with Pelosi and even with the GOP leadership in both chambers, to test the water for quick coming up for a vote, and to probe for any necessary changes before combining the two bills. And in fact, that's exactly what happened.
Democratic and Republican leadership had two bills, HR 6049 and bailout, both of which they wanted but each of which needed some relatively small changes to be palatable. Backroom negotiations found common ground, and the margin of passage in each chamber speaks for itself.
Those who lost the base of their 401Ks on Tuesday were ignored as the Democrats worked their criminal magic to get their pork through.
The "pork" in HR 6049 is bipartisan, and a funny thing is that some of the items that are being ridiculed (wooden arrows, rum, auto racing) actually represent a lessening of government intrusion, which is usually "a good thing" to a conservative.
You have a pleasant evening ... professor.