set it up as per the book,
I do believe that is what I said....if you check the post.
I advocated setting the RPM at the upper end of the suggested range given by the Manufacturer did I not?
That you were flying an R-22 with a Low Inertia Rotor System...and were probably dead square in the wrong part of the Height Velocity Diagram provided by Robinson might have played a role in the sorry outcome of that EOL.
As you noted....near MAUW, hot, humid, just rotating over the barriers, certainly a bad place for the Donk to die in any helicopter....but in an R-22....very much not a place I would want to be.
I would suggest the Autorotational RPM setting was the least important aspect of that situation.....as you probably never established a steady state Autorotational RPM between the time your engine left you....and you began the final pitch pull at the bottom of the descent.
If you had been in a Bell product with a Hi-Inertia Rotor system....the outcome would probably have been very much different in exactly the same situation i would suggest.