John,
I was poking a bit of fun at the Lefty(AS-350BA7) for long-lining, I spent 6hrs one day last month with it and had enough! With right skid low, a normal sized guy like myself has an aweful time seeing over the collective, throttle and door sill. It's not like the Bell's where you're quite close to the door!
I normally use a regular B2 for line work, remove the floor window(s) from their rubber and it's not too bad. Once you get used to not seeing the load most of the time in the window, I actually quite like it. There are a couple different sized windows available, the bigger one obviously being better.
Most people seem to feel that a 120ft line is preferable with the Astar, but I've been experimenting with a 50 footer and am really quite impressed with the results. The drawbacks there being tree clearance, and downwash of course. With the 120, the load will hang nicely in the window when under translation speeds, the lighter the load the slower you have to be, but somethng heavy and small sits there quite well.
Of course removing the door makes a huge difference in the 350, but that's a big hole once the colder wx comes, and a few guys who have bags of time LL in them feel the lifting power is compromised when the doors are removed.
RH