Several years ago we had a 76A on an offshore contract in Asia, whilst it was good mechanically, it had lots of hours and getting tired.
The plan was to refurbish it and upgrade to a ++, and replace it on contract with a C+, when the oil Company were approached with the plan, they were not interested, they said the A model suited their needs and it would be throwing money away to go with a newer aircraft, didn't care about low time airframe, better power margins, updated avionics etc.
Problem nowadays for the Offshore Operators is that the new aircraft are basically people carriers, I will add the 76 and 332 to this group as well, if they are off contract, you are limited to what they can do, in the past when we had a 61 or 212 come off an offshore contract, it wouldn't be idle for long, the VFR div would soon have them out working, dont think the new aircraft, whilst being very good in their own roles, are suited to working in the Bush, and Logging is definately not an option.
Talking of older Helicopters !! If you have a Helicopter with 20,000 + on the clock, do a complete refurbishment, re-wire if required, up-grade the Avionics and with zero time components, this machine is as good, if not better than the day it rolled out of the Factory, so could someone please explain why this aircraft is deemed unsafe?