rotorrookie,
The R22 used to have a poor safety record, but it's improved in recent years...unless you know something recent that I don't. The basic problem is that it was designed originally as inexpensive personal transport, not for training. It's twitchy, somewhat unforgiving, and relatively difficult to fly. That said, many of us learned on it, and we find it easy to convert to other helicopters for just that reason; there's something to be said for learning on a difficult machine. Certainly other helicopters are easier to fly...or so they tell me; I haven't flown the Schweizer or Bell 47 or any of the other usual training alternatives. But with adequate training and flown sensibly it's not inherently dangerous, IMHO.
Concerning the Rotorway Exec, I knew two guys who built one. They were small and light, so weight wasn't a problem. They were both engineers, and enjoyed the building and maintaining side - When I met them, they obligingly practically took it to bits to show me everything they could. Even so, they said they'd never do it again. It had cost them far more and taken far longer than it was supposed to. And they said for every hour flown it needed an hour of maintenance or more!
We didn't even discuss the safety aspects.
So for me anyway, it's a definite thumbs down for the Rotorway.