Nick, Thanks for persevering with this question. I think it is definitely the differences in rate damping which I have found most noticeable in manoeuvres. Strangely enough the Lynx was ths worst offender and it has a very high effective hinge offset - I wonder if the amount of left cyclic required to stop a roll right is partly due to the rate of roll you can achieve thanks to it's huge control power.
Helmet fire, I don't know whether rolling towards the low power side (torque spikes in roll) makes any difference - the rate of roll seems to be purely decided by control power and damping. My original question had to do with manoeuvres like downwind quickstops and wingovers where the typical speed during the middle of the manoeuvre would be 40 - 60 kts. I could try experimenting next time I'm on shift but the rearcrew moan like bugg**y when you try to roll their yellow SAR bus upside down!!!