No Nigel, of course the 505 was not intended to be a "light-heavy-lifter," that was my little joke because some people have been making noise about how much the 505 might lift. But like you, I think 2000 pounds is pretty respectable. Should come in pretty handy for those guys slinging Christmas trees every year who are currently pulling the guts out of their 206B's.
As for the 505 being a "great" corporate machine...well... down in my thread about Heli-Expo (at which I was hoping to meet you) I wrote about spending some time with Bell's N505CQ, which had the barest of bare-bones interiors. I played with different loading scenarios in the loading page on the G-1000 that Bell conveniently provides. It turns out that...imagine my surprise...the 505 is fairly nose-heavy! The version with the fancy Mecaer interior would be even more so. Ergo, the 505 pilot will have to pay close attention to c.g. Mr. Big Bossman might not be real happy being told that he has to take a back seat while his sweet young thing-gf-trophy wife sits up front next to me, heh-heh-heh...I mean...not *me* but the 505 pilot. I know that the guy I used to fly for HATED sitting in the back. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see which market segments that the 505 does well in.