Heli1,
You 'hit the nail on the head.' The tiltrotor is not a great helicopter, and we could bring in some turbo-prop design engineers to prove to us that it is not the optimum airplane either. On the other hand, we could also have tiltrotor experts come in to testify that helicopters and airplanes do not make good tiltrotors! The point is that the V-22 can perform some missions that no helicopter or airplane in existence today can perform. It will NEVER replace helicopters, and it will NEVER replace airplanes -- but it was NEVER designed to replace either.