I am curious as to the intent of the design of the system. Does it come down to personal preference or was the system designed to be utilized in a certain way?
If you are turning against the force trim and not retrimming with the FTR or the hat, aren't you saturating the roll channel and cancelling out any stabilization in that channel for the duration of the turn?
(Unless you're in an AS355, where I believe the AFCS recenters around the cyclic)