I don't know where the idea comes from that there are no clouds in the US, but I can assure you there are. Florida has extreme weather, in the Summer with Thunderstorms every day. In the Winter you have the coldfront coming through exactly like we have here. Night privileges are included in the PPL, but you need three hours of night training (including XC). In California the weather can change very quickly and New England got it's name not for the nice weather.
The idea of going into cloud with non-certified VFR aircraft is ridiculous and as said a few times before VFR means you have to stay clear of cloud at all times. There is no reason at all to end up in cloud. The advantage of a helicopter is you can land at any time and you just land when the weather deteriorates that much. The pilot in question made the wrong weather judgement by going in the first place. The motto is simple; know your meteorology and keep it up by studying it, even when you fly everyday.
Coming back to the original question; GPS might give a false sense of security, but shouldn't be a reason to ban GPS. It's up to the pilot if he wants to rely on it, and during training it's should be made clear the dangers involved. (What to my knowledge is common practice).
An interesting question however is how many PPL's end up in the statistics of CFIT and how many CPL's?
Interesting link :
http://flash.aopa.org/asf/acs_vfrimc/