I don't think it is just the military who teach people to fly helicopters using lever for height and cyclic for speed.
I spent several years flying the Gazelle so blasting around at a fixed pitch setting varying speed to gain or lose height isn't a novel experience.
The 3A SeaKing has a TAS hold so ILS and other apps are usually flown with that cyclic mode engaged and the RoD flown manually on the collective - it seems to work well and there is never any confusion about which control is doing what.
The SAR modes can do fully coupled letdowns to the hover but the speed is always the cyclic program and the height is always the collective program - either can be flown manually with the other still coupled. It seems to work for us and is consistent with basic helicopter skills - maybe that is why we haven't flown any serviceable one into the sea.