JD
I don't recall seeing the 40/800 in a bell civil RFM so that would lead me to believe it might have more to do with NAVAIR then Bell. I could be wrong. If so why no carry over to the 53 is beyond me.
As far as VRS goes, I know some pilots who got into it in the AH (while testing at Pax, not for VRS though) and they have no desire to encounter it again as it scared the crap of them. For the record they encountered it much higher than 285 agl (800 agl) and recovered at less than 100 agl. So to SAS; at 285 agl, in a 2500 fpm near vertical (less than 30 kts with a tailwind) descent, no matter what you were flying, I would submit bad things were going to happen.
Remember, the aircraft was commanded to that point in space, 3X beyond what the flight manual stated. I think it's a little unfair to blame the aircraft as many want to do.