Couldn't agree more, loved the iron duck.
Missed one unique gripper feature - the undercarriage oleos had an extremely small movement - supposedly as it was believed that with a normal range of movement that the computers wouldn't be capable of performing an autoland.
There were a few brave souls who had a special landing technique - late flare and at the last moment stuff the stick fwd.
It worked wonders and used the technique later on the DC9-51 which was also difficult to grease on at 300M with a normal flare.(the earlier 9s weren't a problem).
If you manage to get hold of a copy of the corporations recruiting film made in the mid 60s you will see both the Gripper and the Duck.
Most entertaining - and enlightening-but showed a typical trident controlled crash.
It is available through the Hamble web site!