If there's an impact to the front end or front wheels, the steering wheel spokes are pretty good at breaking anything you stick in their way. Also, if you're gonna hit hard and there's no saving it, you don't want to brace against the wheel; it's hard on the wrists.
Shuffling the wheel is a preferred method by a lot of racers, others like hand-over-hand; for me, it depends on what I'm doing. On a road course, I tend to be 9:00-10:00/2:00-3:00, and rarely if ever a "death-grip"; I've heard it referred to as "soft hands". Much of the time I let the car straighten itself and let the wheel kind of pass through my hands, unless there's a tight sequence of corners/inputs.