I am with you all on improvements to the facilities for night flying to helidecks. However, there are a number of improvements already available for deck lighting and it is
there where the first push should take place. See the report at this site:
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAPAP2004_01.PDF
In particular read the pilot's survey on the workload for night operations.
Fly-by-wire will be a great advance as it has the potential to give an improvement in handling and consistency to the look-and-feel - just observe what has been achieved with the Airbus fleet. However, that is a medium/long term goal; that is not to say that we should not press for early introduction but it will not impact on offshore operations in the immediate future (remember that the S92 was the only helicopter certificated to FAR 29 in the last 30 years).
There should be a push to improve offshore lighting as that has the potential to give the best bang-for-buck in the immediate time scale.