does this sound right or am I misjudging 0 h pilot's skills ?
Misjudging skills by a long way.
A Zero-Hr-Bloggs hasn't really learned that "Attitude is Airspeed" and "Power is Rate of Descent". He cannot fully appreciate the small adjustments needed to hold an attitude. He certainly hasn't learned about the secondary effects of the controls, and that if one control is moved, the other three must be moved to compensate. The absolute necessity to keep the aircraft straight with pedals, gross inputs and tiny inputs.
The Z-H-B is a dead man (or GLBTVPDQGW, whatever the mnemonic is now) unless he has had EOC in the hover and has made a reasonable running landing from 10-15kt.
Remember that an aeroplane is dynamically stable, and wants to fly. A helicopter is dynamically unstable, and wants to crash.