PPL and Quickstops...
When I did my type rating on the MD500, most of the time was spent doing two manouvers: autorotaion and quickstops. The latter is, in my humble opinion, the one manouvre that "has it all" in terms of coordination and complexity. It's putting it all together, and if you master the quickstop you definately know the machine in question.
One interesting thing about down-wind ones... My instructor on the 330 taught me to either quickstop with a turn into the wind at the right moment, or to do it with a slide to the side to avoid getting into disturbed air. The latter one is pretty neat. Just flare, and as the flare gets the speed down slide sideways with the same nose direction. You end up in a downwind hover with no disturbances, and of course you have to whatch out for available power.
When I want to "get up to speed" after a while out of the cockpit, I do a few quickstops to get re-acqainted with the helicopter.
And yes, I do beleive that the quickstop is an essential manouvre and is in the PPL(H) syllabus (or is it?).