Ok Dave, but this has to be seen in context. The problem of gyro nutation in cyclic control was really not understood at first. The lateral booms were a temporary fix while developing the rest of the machine, while the cyclic control was further investigated. In fact the army based the XR4 orders on the raised lateral tailboom config. Good temporary fix IMHO.
I.S. was not the first, but he did develope the helicopter to commercial viability. Any engineer will tell you this is the biggest headache, since it forces out all of the complicated "what if's" along the way.
Intermeshing does have benefits from the point of view of powertrain layout, so it is fair to ask whether this also deserves further consideration. The context of this question has to be the solution to high speed flight.
Mart