HC, Sarah is just my weekend name (joke btw) or are you referring to the SAR Force Cdr?
So you are saying that we should change the way we teach people to fly helicopters just to meet the poor ergonomics of a French autopilot!
No Sarah (well its the weekend now), all helicopters are like this as various of us have explained. Only if you never fly near a power limit does controlling height always with the collective, work, and even then it can increase the workload significantly as I explained in my "ILS students" post.
I fully appreciate I'm never going to break you from your military indoctrination via Prune, it'll have to wait until you get a proper job.