That is an interesting approach, basically assuming that the first stage is "lost" and try to land it. If you do land it win! if not, well you didn't need to anyway.
Does anyone know if the landing will be parachute assisted like the solid rocket boosters of the shuttle?
SpaceX tried parachute recovery of first stages with earlier launches. Apparently it trashed the stage pretty good every time, so that they consider it a failed technique. (They've never released photos of a recovered part, so far as I know, which I think is evidence of embarrassment.)
With their Grasshopper work, I expect they'll try to save the mass and effort involved with parachutes and just do propulsive recovery. (Parachutes are surprisingly hard, and adding a second system of any sort is probably more than twice the work--and raises the probability of failure.)
Does anyone know if the landing will be parachute assisted like the solid rocket boosters of the shuttle?