SASless, and anybody else interested-
I can't speak to PHI's safety culture now, but I was there in the latter part of the Bob Suggs era, and stayed until 1997. I found their safety culture commendable. You're right that there was no official protection of a pilot's position when afoul of the company's interest. I saw good pilots 'run off' for pure personality conflict.
My opinion is that there was a strong unofficial pilot's advocate in the Training Department during those years. Opinion varied by individual, but largely, the Training Department was respected by the line pilots and management, knew the key contracts, and were the court of last appeal before the supposedly mandatory board (Not always implemented).
Training, at that time, required it's members to fly the line, so they were familiar with the real world. They were also actively involved in Safety, and were always willing to learn from whatever source about specific aircraft. When I butted heads with maintenance, management or contracts, taking the issue to the training department resolved it.
I took many maintenance, procedural, and contract issues up the chain to Lafayette and never had a problem. At various times, I was also the only PHI VFR pilot 'flying the job', or not flying, for weather- and was only questioned by management once. In that event, my call was supported with dissent, no repercussions.
Post script aside, on moving the start button to the cyclic- I wish the company had modified an existing grip button instead of grafting it to the control column. The only hot start I ever had resulted from the connection in the base of the button intermittently failing from the wire's stress from the pilot's manipulating it during starts. Against that, in some 20000 or so starts, in winds up to approximately 40 knots, that mod allowed better control of the Bell teetering rotor. I've done the 'knee thing' and it's not comparable in effect or ease of use...