I flew a 222 in the mid 80s. During my time on it they went to the "fir tree" PT rotor which fixed the wheel burst problems- Got about 1,000 hours on it. It was an OK IFR aircraft but it had a small margin between empty weight and gross weight- about 2000 lbs so after you load fuel there was not much room for payload. Single engine performance was good considering it had 2 X 650 shp engines and a gross weight of 7,850 lbs compare that with a 76A which has 2 X 650 shp engines and a gross weight of 10,500 lbs.
Never did any hoist ops with it but I did do hover exits- the c of g was very stable for hover exits and you hardly notcied a lateral c of g change when loading or unloading in the hover.
Never flew a 109 so I can't comment.
The 222 with its limited payload was quite- well some what useless.