FH1100,
I have a couple of questions based on two of your comments:
"Asymmetical-VRS will happen down low, at the bottom of an f'ed up approach"
"The crew will be in one of those "high gain" task situations, concentrating on getting into an LZ and dodging enemy fire."
What do you think a -22 tactical approach profile looks like, what do you think a -46, -53, -60 profile looks like, when do you think the enemy is most likely to fire and how much maneuverablity do you think a section or division of aircraft have to "dodge enemy fire" when on final to the LZ.
If an approach is 'f'ed up' it begs the question why not wave off as we are trained to do?
The majority of USMC operations are done as a 2 or 3 ship formation. Therefore the enemy would most likely wait until the formation was on short final and in a flare (low engery state) to open fire. In short, because you are in a formation and at a low airspeed there isn't much maneuvering to be done that will affect the accuracy of the gunners on the ground, accelerating away from the zone is your best option. It could be that the -22 can get out of this situation better than a helicopter. Since nacelles are use to control airspeed the -22 will have less pitch attitude required to decelerate (better FOV for the pilots) and can accererate to above 60 knots faster than a helicopter thus making it harder to track. I don't think that the -22 profile will make it as susceptible to A-VRS as you do. I think a bigger concern in your scenario is the lack of suppressive fire.
I don't know anyone who thinks that A-VRS is inconsequential or insignificant. I think most believe that it can be trained to by following the same techniques we use on other platforms. You left out one very important parameter of the 800 fpm, it' s the airspeed component which is airspeed below 40 kts (which is short final at less than 100 ft agl in a tactical approach). This whole 40kt/800fpm was taught to us at flight school in the TH-57 (well before Marana), is a warning in most every USMC RW NATOPS, and a condition that we constantly train to avoid by flying tactical profiles that keep us out of it. I'm sure they can do the same in the -22 which doesn't make me callous, I'm just going to trust the Marines who operate the aircraft to do what we've done before. You don't, there's the difference.