Then it gets into service and much like software we all become beta testers.
Unfortunately this is true, always has been true and probably always will be! It is not realistic to expect a manufacturer to flight test their products over the tens of thousands of flight hours likely to be encountered in an airframe's life, and over the wide range of roles. And even if they did, as soon as some tiny element is changed, that invalidates all the testing (weakest link in the chain etc) and the manufacturer would have to start again. Nothing would ever fly commercially, or if it did it would be astronomically expensive.
So yes a new model of anything, especially a helicopter, will always have issues, some more scary than others.
Although the focus is on the 225 at the moment, one of its strengths is that it is an evolution of previous proven designs, changes only being made when there is a clear benefit. The bevel shaft design concept has always been fine until they decided for some reason to change the manufacturing process (and possibly had slackened the quality control).
By contrast the S92 is more of an all-new less-proven design (Black Hawk legacy not withstanding) and it has had far more and various major design failures as a consequence.
Bottom line is that the bathtub curve is the reality. 7 years or so down the road, on both these new types we are getting down towards the bottom of the steep bit of the curve with only 1 fatal accident between both. That is probably quite a good record!
So yes, new types bring greater risk of techincal / design issues. However newer types are also much easier and safer to fly from an operational point of view (if correct procedures are established and followed) so it is swings and roundabouts with the safety of new types!
HC