Perhaps consider the extra risks that non-licensed mil pilots have been willing to accept in order to save lives (sitting committed in the hover when winching to a restricted site or hover-taxying up mountains in cloud for example) knowing that generally the worst they could expect if their actions were not seen as reasonable would be a slap on the wrist.
The worst was a slap on the wrists, huh? I tell you what - any day of the week give me a ride with any pilot who cares about losing his job versus a pilot who is suffering from a case of deluded grandeur that they are the worlds greatest gift to aviation. SAR is not a place for a stick jockey.
Claiming that new and whizzy helicopters will make SAR better and more efficient is just a facade - yes you can get there quicker and easier and a better icing clearance will help with that but the vinegar stroke of many AROps is a manual hover with visual references and neither of the new helos has a pilot's window that opens so you don't have to view those references through rain streaked perspex - a little fold-down peephole just isn't good enough, especially in the dark.
Are you saying you used to stick your bollard out of the cockpit window of the Sea King to maintain a visual reference? Seriously clutching at straws to say a properly trained pilot can't maintain a hover by looking through a bit of plastic.