pa42 and I discussed this one night in one of Mojave's finer dining establishments (OK, so it was one of two non-fast food restraunts...)
One of the issues is that there is little (no?) standardization in the civil training world either for flight test requirements or for instructor training. Not helping this is the ludicrously low hours and relative lack of instructor training needed to be a helicopter instructor in the USA.
The military has perhaps a better handle on this, but could be said to be guilty of only considering military scenarios and types - ones that currently have a lot of power in the training environment. (how many training trips get done at maximum weight and high pressure altitudes and temperatures with minimum or no power margin?)
It would be interesing to see what the feedback from the folks flying in Afghanistan has been, and even more interesting to have someone put together a matrix of helicopter maneuvers that a student pilot should be able to demonstrate in a private and then commercial flight test. Some countries require sling load training as part of the commercial syllabus, where the FAA has a separate 'rating' for slung loads, as just one example.