The tools shouldn't require the use of chroot. It is quite common on Solaris to be able to specify a path that should be considered the root directory for the tool, usually -R. This was super useful in a netboot world using nfs, and also for crash recovery.

If a system is screwed up enough, then a chroot strategy won't work because it relies on the path you are chrooting to to be generally valid and functional. If it's missing libraries you may well be screwed.