Slowrotor, if you'll indulge me for a second, I'll try to add a little real world to the most excellent replies you've gotten already-
Steep and slow seems hard because you're just learning to do it. And it's strange and dangerous to your airplane sensibilities.
I remember wishing I could just YANK the power and leap into the air- gradual, controlled liftoffs seemed a waste of time getting to 3 feet- then I saw the results of a dynamic roll-over, and talked to an amazed pilot "THe cyclic wouldn't stop it. I hit the stop and it just kept going!" Point taken, now I try to count all four corners off the ground as I lift straight up.
Next big lesson for me- After some time at the "Southeast Asian Unpleasantness," I had to break the bad habit of "diving-glide-flair-crash" landings. Took me a while to appreciate the risks I was incurring by "not wasting time" and "staying outside the deadmans curve": tail rotor strikes; main rotor strikes; hitting stuff in general- the stuff that grew or got added to familar helipads- Antennas, wires, signs, loose stuff, people, the list is endless. Add the fact that an approach flown fast is seldom stable.
Steep and slow is worth learning. It will reward you many times as you fly. This is a helicopter and it hovers.
Helicopters exist to go places off airport. The more this you do this, the more likely you're going to have to contend with obstacles and limited space. When you're landing to an LZ, the mechanical act of flying the helicopter is the very least of your work. No matter how many time you've been into that LZ, this time something will have changed, and you're coming in s-l-o-w to give yourself time to find it. Making it even more difficult, you're going to be looking down into the LZ limiting your view and from a very poor aspect. You want to start your search for obstacles as soon as you can and look as long as you can.
VRS is a factor to consider in these operations. I'm not going to minimise the risk, just put it in the proper place. VRS isn't your greatest hazard. If you're alert to the conditions allowing it and the signs of onset, it's easily corrected. I suggest you become very familiar with them, do some fully developed, and that bogey man will lose a lot of it's terrors. Collisions are the killer here.
It may not impress the Blue Thunder and Airwolf crowd, but I admire the approach flown such that the helo's attitude doesn't change after loss of ETL, and the bird creeps onto the pad. That's a patient pilot who correctly evaluated conditions, set his approach up properly and kept it stabilized all the way, making minute corrections.