I've no experience with AB fixed wing products, but I find their modern rotary wing AFCS automation and protections very intuitive and helpful. That said they are mostly helpful in marginal weather, IFR and category A operations, where a private single engine helicopter pilot should never be. I admit that having several simulator sessions in a year helps to mitigate that "what's it doing" phenomenom.
I've also little exeperince with light helicopters with a SAS and a 3 axis autopilot, and I would argue that an altitude hold alone frees a lot of capacity of an inexperienced pilot when things start to go wrong. But that is of course not an excuse to not develop adequate hands on flying skills.