007helicopter
Yes, I would also agree about the side stick. This is another element of the Cirrus that is often brought up. I think often so by pilots who have very little time on the aircraft. Like anything new it seems "odd" at first. In fact I so much enjoy flying with the stick that I often hand fly entirely and have often flown for several hours using only the sidestick. My personal preference now is conventional stick, side stick and yoke. I guess the only reason a yoke was put in an aircraft was because the designers thought they should make an aircraft seem more like a car.
Pace - I agree with almost everything in your last post so you see we disagree very little! Your point about the screens is of course valid but I didnt know whether your jaunt to Nice was going to be partly in IMC. I think you will find there isn't much else to look at in IMC.
Of course you don't need all the bells and whistles to fly in IMC but I guess having a command of the basics is no bad thing.
421C - thinking about it you sum up very well a point I made earlier. So many posts are based entirely on personal experience (perhaps not surprisingly). One thing I realised from running a Group is things are sometimes not quite as you would expect! In fact when flying with someone else you are often better starting with no expectation and having no idea of their past experience or hours - usually the experience and qualifications comes as no surprise, but not always, usually the attitude is comparable, but not always! We naturally look at things from our own point of view so its entirely understandable that you and Pace could and would be comfortable in a Cirrus in a couple of hours but I know there are many pilots (not especially with your experience) that would not. Insurers don't have the luxury of flying with you so they calculate experience and premiums in a different way, you might not agree with their calculations but again perhaps that's because your perspective is different from theirs!
One of my stars is Raymond Blanc; they were only saying when he employs a chef he doesnt ask them what they have done or how they would cook a jugged hare, he asks them to fry an egg. The chef that thinks any fool can fry an egg and proceeds to do so without care or passion proceeds no further. There is an analogy there somewhere. If you have spent 300K of your children's hard won inheritance you might not only want a competent pilot but one who appreciates how to look after the aircraft. There are another two element that don't necessarily go together.
It am take a big longer to work out if the pilot is going to look after your aircraft in the way you would wish.