Yes, my focus going into this season has been on 2015. My feeling is that Romo's back is OK all season which is a good indicator for 2015 OR his back fails and they draft a QB with a top 10 pick.
People panic about dead-money, but forget that when players are cut their massive base salaries are gone also. There is dead-money from cutting Ware, but they ended up with more cap space without him on the roster because his base salary is gone.
I don't think people forget that the base salary disappears. My repeated objections to your salary cap posts (which I appreciate and hope to learn from) is your continuing use of the term "offset." As you example shows, the dead money remains, but the team doesn't have to pay the base salary. The base salary doesn't offset the dead money; the base salary is gone so the cap hit is reduced, but it does not reduce or offset the dead money.
People (and most front offices around the league) "panic" about dead money because it eats up valuable cap space. If, by your calculations, Romo's dead money is around 30 million if cut, that means the team cannot sign 30 million worth of players. That is where the "panic" comes from.
It really is as simple as that.
Gladly the Cowboys front office woke up this this realization this offseason and, to the celebration of many, did not sign aging vets to backloaded contracts (as they had done in the past). They learned that dead money is not a good thing.