The AW609 wing strike incident is interesting (and a little gut wrenching) if due to a software problem, as reported. It would not be the first in-flight airplane mode incident to result in structural damage due to a software problem on the 609. Yaw control via differential collective requires very fine control of the rotor collective. Very small inputs result in large forces.
As for the economics of the aircraft, the break-even production run went stupid more than 15 years ago, at least from Bell's standpoint. I'm not even sure that AW's investment makes sense any more, but I have no direct knowledge on the particulars of their investment. I always felt it was a little on the small side, but certainly would have been a neat aircraft to introduce in the early 2000's and at 16,000 lb GW...